Above: The “summer” of fiscal 2024 was not only the most aggressive year of removals in history, it contained a single month (July) that saw more wild horses and burros removed than the entire years of 2013, 2014, 2015…
For our readers
Fiscal 2024 was the most relentless roundup year in history. Many of you, and some of us on the WHE team as well, are trying to shake the pain caused by the onslaught and continue the fight.
A lot of you are writing letters to us expressing the anguish you feel and asking for our help on various issues and for help to save the handful of herds left untouched by the absolute callousness of the politically and financially motivated “Path Forward” (incorporated in 2018 by BLM into their report to Congress and then fully funded). We have even received a handful of “apology” letters that express regret for not believing us when we told you how bad this was going to get back in 2016 when the draft was called “Ten Years to AML.”
Fiscal year 2025 has just begun and the impacts of this multimillion dollar lobby coalitions’ agenda is now impossible not to see.
We hear you
Large swaths of public lands that are part of the meager 12% designated for use by wild horses and burros have been pushed to what BLM absurdly calls “Appropriate Management Level” (AML) and have been hit with “expanding fertility control” primarily through the use of GonaCon (hormonal substance with a 4-10 efficacy rate) on older mares left on the range that will likely die before becoming fertile again. Herds like McCullough and Onaqui that were once the “stars” of BLM’s darting programs using the one-year PZP have even been hit.
After the roundup hit at the beginning of FY 2025 at Twin Peaks, the only HMAs in the entire NW of Nevada and NE of CA left are smallest herds in the area, Buffalo Hills and Carter. The larger complexes of numerous HMAs of Surprise and Calico have been driven below AML. At Surprise there was admission (managed by CA) of the “below AML” where they only left 5 wild horses in the entire Wall Canyon HMA and simply released another 5. At Calico (managed by NV) there has been no release of any data. A trip to either complex is a long and lonely drive devoid of horse and even any horse sign now.
Below: The beginning of the fiscal 2024 roundup year hit wild horse country like a sledgehammer with no data disclosure and zero management planning, just removal to suit profiteers to get to an AML set in the late 70s by politics, not science.
In demonstration that this plan has nearly reached the goal of “getting to AML and keeping it there” (the agenda in a nutshell), BLM just posted a brand new job opening for someone to coordinate contracts and fertility control on a national scale; the paradigm is shifting.
Many of you are feeling this shift.
What many of you do not know is that AML was never set through transparent management planning using any data. AML was set in agreements with livestock permittees on a grazing allotment-by-allotment basis with BLM stating (in early documents) that these numbers would be revisited through the Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) after data was collected. Instead of completing HMAPs, BLM simply carried these administrative numbers into documents they call “Land Use Plans” that are not analysis documents, simply documents stating goals for each district.
The complete national AML has also never been reached (except in the days as the Act was passed and Congress found those same numbers to represent “fast disappearing from the landscape”). The numbers reflected in AML are numbers gleaned from what is called “windshield survey.” The only thing BLM changed after the 2013 National Academy of Sciences report was how they do inventory. NAS said BLM had been undercounting by as much as 30%-50%. However, the new calculation modeling was never applied to those early “estimates.” In other words: if BLM said 50 horses could be in an area in 1982, then using today’s modeling they would mean 65-100.
The “Ten Years to AML” (later called Path Forward), never addressed what AML stands for and methods to fix it… it just set the stage to “remove to an administrative number that never had a basis in science and to use whatever method from vaccination to surgical sterilization to keep it there.”
The BLM report that incorporated the corporate agenda is an “upside down” vision that keeps turning the program “upside down.” If you look at the report it places things like monitoring and on range management planning at the bottom of the financial priorities and places removal and fertility control at the top.
It is a real shame that it took so long for many in the public to catch on. Media members are starting to catch on now as well.
Is it too late to turn the tide?
Change is possible
It took a long time (and a horrific incident where a colt snapped its leg at Pancake) to get the fight back on track and out from under the “upside down” world created by big corporate or the industrialization of nonprofits.
It took 2 years to get the case through the system; and it won. The courts now recognize that “population growth suppression plans” (roundup Gather-EA) are not management plans. Only one roundup was done at Pancake under the Path Forward driven roundup plan BLM happened before it was stopped in its tracks.
There will be no roundup out there until BLM opens up the actual management plan to public scrutiny and participation. This herd has a real chance now of being protected and viable for future generations.
The death of that little colt many have saved the future of the entire herd.
WARNING: Video below disturbing for most viewers
The loss of that young life could be the pivot point for change in the entire system… if we all push hard enough.
Can the damage to our herds be repaired?
You, the public, are getting louder as you demand accountability. Yes, things have been horrible for our wild ones. That is why change needs to happen and why a strong advocacy must exist. We know you hurt… but do not give up hope.
We have won a second court victory at Blue Wing. The Blue Wing roundup plan was not in the first year and the fight was harder because of it. But even here we won on the fact that the roundup/fertility control plan was not a management plan and that BLM had cut the public out of participation in actual management and never disclosed how AML was set.
At Blue Wing any management plan (if we all work together) can set the stage to begin to repair the damages. The Pancake win represents a chance to protect and preserve a herd that still can grow. In the way the original law was written but then the herd and public were shortchanged by the system… reform is now possible due to the outcome of litigation.
As we fight for other herds we see BLM being reactive. We are starting to see BLM trying to get ahead of litigation by announcing decades neglected planning scoping periods. We see BLM changing narrative.
Instead of advocacy sitting in a reactive chair, the paradigm is also shifting to a place where we are proactive and BLM reactive. That may not seem like a lot to those of you new to this fight… but this is a rare moment in the history of on-range management.
What all of us as “advocacy” do in this moment really matters. Our collective narrative must change, too.
Our team is really busy these next two months in the field and in the courts. We may not be able to answer your emails or provide the assistance to other groups that we normally give freely.
RIGHT NOW: We are juggling numerous cases in the courts. We are fighting for access and transparency, enforceable welfare rules and to gain fair on range management. We have numerous briefs due, meetings with government lawyers and hearings coming rapid fire.
Precedents set through our recent wins (and past litigation) is setting the stage to continue the push for accountability to the original intention of law: to protect herd and habitat for future generations. We are working to break the flaws of the past as we can see the paradigm shift and the new tools that will be needed to repair decades of agenda driven reactive management and create a framework that can repair the damages it caused.
Does BLM have transparent management plans for wild horses and burros that disclose how AML and forage allocations are made? No.
Did BLM ever allow the public to give input on anything except removal and other forms of population growth suppression? No.
Does BLM protect critical habitat from private profit uses? No.
Does BLM even have an enforceable welfare policy? No.
Can we create the changes needed? Yes.
Do not give up Hope.
It took many in the public nearly 6 years to see the devastation begun in 2018 by the Path Forward.
We are already seeing the beginning of a wave of long overdue change. We must stay the course. It may take a bit of time for many of you to see the changes that have just begun… but we are starting to see it.
As those of us at WHE get our heads down to do some really heavy lifting in the courts over the next two months, please do not lose Faith… change is on the horizon if we do not waver.
Onward.
We are hearing rumblings that there will be a new directive soon regarding management planning coming from BLM. Once again our litigation is creating changes in direction and internal policy.
We are also hearing feedback that those of you calling for actual enforceable welfare rules, a real Humane Policy, are making headway. While we fight in the courts to widen the crack to gain fair on range management YOU can push the needle to gain the long overdue enforceable welfare rules. Please keep calling.
If you would like to make a direct contribution to help us continue to be in the field and pay the bills to keep pushing hard in the courtroom, we are grateful for your support.
Thank you for keeping WHE running for the wild.
There are several ways you can support WHE from gift shopping to stock donations. Learn more HERE.