On August 1, there were 28 (13 Stallions, 11 Mares, and 4 Foals) wild horses were captured. 41 more wild horses were shipped to the off-limits to public viewing facility, Sutherland in Utah. A total of 580 (218 Stallions, 267 Mares, and 95 Foals) wild horses have been captured since operations began on 7/15 and 13 have died.
This is the second day at this trap location and, from our pre-roundup runs, trap will move tomorrow as most of the horses are now gone in this zone.
This little black colt caught our observers eye as he was captured. He gets startled and jumps a bit in the pen and she can see him again. An adult makes an unsuccessful attempt to escape the trap.
Our observer remains the only public at the trap. However, WHE has had other observers on range saying “good-bye” to wild horses they know before trap moves into those areas. It should be noted that our observer is using an extreme zoom camera. If you attend with a standard zoom lens you will see very little.
It is really hard to watch stallions try to form a new band after a roundup only to have it shattered again in the next year or two. After the last capture in this area a mare, a lone member of her band left on the range, was found by a stallion that was lucky enough to be a part of a “fertility control” release. She had just given birth. He formed a small band with a few mares and we saw him yesterday with that mare and the once newborn foal he found. It was such a relief when he found her. It is simply heart wrenching to know that small band built by that amazing stallion from the fragments after the last roundup… will be shattered. (The video below is not of his band. We do not want to show it as the area is obvious in the video to anyone that knows this range.) New babies have been seen by our on-range team and many mares are still very pregnant.
A number of the operations going on right now have not seen a helicopter capture in a decade…. The complexes under this EA have seen (at least) one large roundup each year since it was finalized in 2017! These ten-year plans let this kind of thing run roughshod over horses while projects for mining and livestock are approved rapidly. They come back and squeeze these areas again and again… without new data, actual management planning or public input.
Areas that have not been zeroed out, shrunk, still have enough acreage to support a large herd (if the BLM actually managed the resources on the range for something other than livestock and mining) are disappearing. If an actual population level were set for what these areas could sustain when the law passed in 1971, the levels would be at least 1500. If we managed the meager 12% of public lands wild horses could legally live on for wild horses and burros as was the original intention of the law … at least some of our wild places would not be in such danger.
Did you know that in the U.S. the largest “Appropriate Management Level” set by BLM in an HMA is 612? Only 3 HMAs allow for a large population of over 500; the largest being 612. BLM only manages 177 HMAs and zeroed out the rest. Only 30 HMAs have an AML set at over 150 wild horses, burros, or a combination of the two. 44 HMAs have an AML of 25 animals or less.
Our last wild places where we could actually preserve a herd that remotely resembles the numbers we had in the 1930’s (estimate over 100,000 at the time of the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934) are fast-disappearing from the landscape…. and our wild horses and burros are being pushed down to pre-1971 numbers, the numbers Congress found fast-disappearing when the ’71 Act was signed.
Couldn’t America have done better for this symbol of freedom and heritage than this?
Youngsters in temporary that will be shipped to off-limits holding, shipped to an event somewhere as Adoption Incentive Program (AIP) eligible…. and could be in some killpen in less than 18 months.
The entire system is racing toward collapse under the BLM 2020 Plan (Path Forward incorporated). Congress is set to fund the third and final year to be in striking distance if the population levels set in politics, not science., of the 1970s and 1980s.
Pick up the phone today and ask your representatives to stop funding for the program until an investigation and evaluation of the 2020 Plan is completed, It makes no sense to keep funding the collapse of a program ripe with fraud and waste until a transparent investigation is completed. Nothing less is irresponsible to the taxpayer. Call (202) 224-3121 and ask for your representative today.
You can view our ongoing daily sheet with links to our long reports from each dat at Triple B by clicking HERE.
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Categories: Wild Horse Education
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