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Old 01-08-2017, 03:35 PM
 
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
10,336 posts, read 7,926,344 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow View Post
I'm all for cutting out the BLM. Let the wild horses be wild. The BLM needs to be extinct.
They're not wild. They never were. And in any case, there's no "wild" for them to be in any more.

There are no longer any huge tracts of land (outside of possibly Antarctica) where human activities are so minimal that the natural ecosystem can be left alone to balance itself. I hate this, I really do. But it's reality. Having broken the natural conditions that once allowed animal and plant populations to self-regulate, we now need to take the responsibility of doing that job as best as we can. The alternative is to watch far too many species plunge into extinction.

And if we are going to manage the land, I favor managing it to favor native species, and to promote as much biodiversity as possible.
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Old 01-08-2017, 03:53 PM
 
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
10,336 posts, read 7,926,344 times
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Some interesting numbers can be found in this 2016 BLM report: https://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/wh...ick_facts.html

Note these figures:

Total wild equine removals in 2016: 3,819
Total adoptions in 2016: 2,631
Total sales in 2016: 267

So the BLM removed 3,819 horses and burros from the range in 2016, and successfully placed 2,898 animals. That's a removal-to-placement ratio of roughly 76%. Not too bad!

The scary figure is this one:

Wild equine population in BLM's Off-Range Corrals and Pastures: 45,661

We have a huge backlog of horses and burros that are simply never, ever going to be adopted. That is the current problem. Clear out that backlog by putting the unadoptable animals down humanely, and the problem instantly becomes a lot more manageable. (And increasing use of PZP anti-fertility immunizations may make it more manageable yet.)

(The other scary bit is this phrase: "wild horse and burro herds double in size about every four years.")
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Old 01-08-2017, 04:09 PM
 
3,638 posts, read 3,764,731 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aredhel View Post

Wild equine population in BLM's Off-Range Corrals and Pastures: 45,661

We have a huge backlog of horses and burros that are simply never, ever going to be adopted. That is the current problem. Clear out that backlog by putting the unadoptable animals down humanely, and the problem instantly becomes a lot more manageable. (And increasing use of PZP anti-fertility immunizations may make it more manageable yet.)

(The other scary bit is this phrase: "wild horse and burro herds double in size about every four years.")
I agree with you. It's hard to fight the well-monied groups that insist that every horse live. My state's reps are for humane euthanasia. They agree with protecting the lands for all wildlife and allowing multiple use, which include recreation/ecotourism.

But, even writing one's congressman doesn't seem to help. Those groups that make millions through exaggeration and outright misinformation keep things tied up in courts with lawsuit after lawsuit.

It does amaze me that the anti-management people are against birth control. The herds absolutely do double in size.

Another thing about horses and burros, is the shape of their hooves. The wide, flat surface compacts the soil. All soil. A heavily used spring or drainage pond gets completely destroyed if the equine traffic is heavy. Split hooved animals aerate the soil. You see less damage and even improved forage in areas with solely deer, antelope, elk, moose, and even cattle and sheep, if there is also moisture. Which there often is not in the western rangelands.
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Old 01-08-2017, 04:56 PM
 
26,328 posts, read 14,928,570 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by banjomike View Post
But I'm guessing you knew all that already, and just used the topic to take a cheap shot at our departing President.
No I agree with you. Any criticism of drone policy killing thousands of civilians and destabilizing a region further is a cheap shot. I would never criticize the hawt one, I'll save that until it is a Republican one doing it again.
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Old 01-08-2017, 07:57 PM
 
17,468 posts, read 12,899,944 times
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45 Years of Management Based on Corruption, Happy Anniversary Wild Horses? - Habitat For Horses
Forty-five years ago, December 15, Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 (WFRH&B Act) was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971 (approved on December 15). This law landed on Nixon’s desk after passing both the House and Senate (June 19, 1971) unanimously.
December 15 is seen as the “anniversary†of the Act to protect wild horses and burros on public land


We urge you to read: https://wildhorseeducation.org/2015/12/14/wfrhb-act/


Immediately after the passage of the Act work began to undercut any protections by those that resented any federal interference, namely those that profited from “mustanging.†Mustanging was a practice where ranchers and others that lived in the West would literally run down wild horses through brutal methods, and either kill them outright or catch them in any way they could, and ship them to render. Wild horses were turned into dog food and fertilizer putting fast cash into the pockets of the perpetrator, without any regulation from state or federal authorities.
The American public felt the federal law protected wild horses. The real work to engage and define management practices never happened.

Velma Johnston, “wild horse Annie,†was one of the lead advocates in the fight to gain federal jurisdiction. Jurisdiction had to be established that could create laws and practices that protected this animal so important to the history of our nation and dear to the hearts of all Americans. An animal that ranged over American public land, a resilient survivor, that represented the spirit of the people and the land. Velma died shortly after the first roundup of wild horses under the Act at Stone Cabin, essentially her work died with her. PLEASE READ an Apology to Velma by clicking HERE.


A splintered and competitive “advocacy†created perhaps the greatest roadblocks of all as opposition remained united. A huge push to resume mustanging, for the federal government to issue permits to locals, began after the “claiming period.†The claiming period ran from 1971-1975, essentially mustanging continued after the law was passed with over 17,000 free roaming horses claimed in Nevada alone during that time.


The “numbers game†we are faced with today was born. In 1971 Congress declared the wild horse “fast disappearing†from the landscape, yet the numbers asserted at that very moment have become the goal of the agency tasked with management, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). “Carrying capacity†has very little to do with science and preservation of the resource that is the “wild horse,†and everything to do with politics.


During that claiming period the “you won’t interfere with me†push went into full swing.
Today there are areas like the Elko district in Nevada that did a great job of eradicating horses “on the land they now stand†through a paper politics game of intimidation and “favors,†or from outright slaughter. Over the years we have interviewed some old “mustangers†that talk about how they were hired to shoot horses in those days because “be damned if the federal government will interfere with me.â€


In some areas we have huge complexes that contain massive tracks of public land and legal herd management areas (HMA). Oddly we have public land allotments that belonged to politically powerful ranching families of the day that are considered “off HMA,†or “not horse areas,†even though these areas contain “trespass†wild horses on an annual basis (indicating how absurd this literal “turf war†is in any assertion of accuracy based on truth).


The federal government began a push that simply “removes and stockpiles†as they try to reach a number that keeps wild horses on the verge of “fast disappearing.†Nature fights back and increases reproduction. The pickle we are in has been perpetuated by a system based on politics, not common sense and any assertion of “fair practices.â€


Today the lack of factual engagement based on integrity of practice is the root cause of all the problems our wild ones face. It is up to us to create that accountability.
2017 promises to see every aspect of the turf war escalate as environmental protections (water, air and endangered species) face increased threats in a political climate run not for building a legacy of preserving our nation, but to exploit it for profit. Our wild horses are caught in a truly deranged war that is intent on hiding the roots of corruption as it races to literally sell off public land to the highest private bidder, because that is the push if States take over federal resource.


The tasks ahead are immense in the broken frame. A comprehensive frame that removes the corruption the current one hangs on must be built at the same time as we fight to maintain the intention that federal jurisdiction represents.
“An educated advocacy is more important than ever.â€


https://wildhorseeducation.org/2015/06/07/fish-creek-the-controversy/
A glaring example is the Fish Creek Herd Management Area (HMA) in Eureka. A plan was put in place that complied with all current fiscal and budgetary restrictions, including all recommendations from the NAS for data and fertility control, and it is being vehemently fought by local ranchers and government entities. You have to step back and wonder why? Why would these entities fight so vigorously to stop a plan that would slow population growth and gather data to create appropriate management of horses?


In the process of creating appropriate management of horses you discover the reality of the areas they live in and “who†they are. You document the herd (identifying individuals that would help track any “undocumented removalsâ€). You document exactly how horses use the range (so they can not be blamed for degradation caused by other factors and to pressure specific habitat for horses to use). You also see clearly anything else that might be happening on that range (like times and quantity of livestock use).


Please remember that documentation of livestock use is abysmal. Permits are renewed with no actual assessment of ranges (so often that Congress snuck in a rider last year demanding BLM give out permits regardless of any “backlog†in doing rangeland assessment). Trespass livestock is more common than the public realizes. The “big ones†hit the news because of the threats of violence (like Bundy), but it is a widespread problem. Permits begin and end on specific days but can be “inconvenient†to comply with. Trespass of a few weeks to a few months, is rarely documented by understaffed offices. When trespass is brought to their attention the livestock industry has multiple legal loopholes.


I would certainly consider changing my viewpoint on states taking back federal land if this is how they will handle it. Running the horses to the point of death is cruel and unnecessary.
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Old 01-08-2017, 08:37 PM
 
Location: Free From The Oppressive State
30,207 posts, read 23,620,464 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Aredhel View Post
They're not wild. They never were. And in any case, there's no "wild" for them to be in any more.

There are no longer any huge tracts of land (outside of possibly Antarctica) where human activities are so minimal that the natural ecosystem can be left alone to balance itself. I hate this, I really do. But it's reality. Having broken the natural conditions that once allowed animal and plant populations to self-regulate, we now need to take the responsibility of doing that job as best as we can. The alternative is to watch far too many species plunge into extinction.

And if we are going to manage the land, I favor managing it to favor native species, and to promote as much biodiversity as possible.
Don't take what I said so seriously. It was more tongue in cheek that I prefer animals to our government.
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Old 01-08-2017, 10:37 PM
 
Location: Omaha, Nebraska
10,336 posts, read 7,926,344 times
Reputation: 27717
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow View Post
Don't take what I said so seriously. It was more tongue in cheek that I prefer animals to our government.
Who wouldn't?

But seriously, the BLM is not perfect (to say the least), but it's only fair to note this is a problem they didn't create. Others did, much earlier in history, and now we're all stuck trying to clean up the resulting mess. And even if every domestic cow, sheep, and goat was permanently removed from all public lands forever, we'd still eventually wind up with too many mustangs and not enough food for them. The last time horses ran truly wild and free on these lands, they shared them with saber-tooth cats, the short-faced bear, the American lion, the American cheetah, the dire wolf, and Paleolithic human hunters as well as modern grizzlies, wolves, mountain lions, and coyotes. As nice as it might be to dream that someday we could re-introduce enough large predators to keep mustang numbers in check naturally, I don't ever see it actually happening.
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Old 02-28-2017, 05:29 AM
 
Location: Old Mother Idaho
29,192 posts, read 22,240,647 times
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Reviving an old thread... I didn't read all the responses when it was still active.

There were a lot of comments that bore further thought on this. Here's what my take is.

First, any culling can't be selective. If only the old and sick are culled, we end up with healthy young herds that are all breeders, so the numbers will only increase more rapidly.
Culling out the inbreds and the 'dinks' in favor of horses better fit for riding only does the same. We would be inadvertently creating herds of smarter, sounder, horses that will live longer because they are smarter and sounder. Every domestic breed is only bred for 2 reasons- to pull vehicles or to ride. When released into the wild, both these types only strengthen the feral bloodlines.
When allowed to breed naturally, all horses eventually reach a type that nature decrees to be best for survival. Human purposes for the horse replicate nature's purposes. So any cull has to be random, taking young and old, good and bad, at the same time.

The adoption and sales numbers reflect the fact that people have given up riding horses for pleasure. If there actually are 47,000 wild horses spending their lives in corrals nowadays, that number would be very close to the total of wild horses that are still roaming free.
Those corralled horses aren't breeding nearly as much as those that are still free. That's nature at work. All animals who are having a hard time surviving don't breed during their hard times as much or as often. So the corralled horses are dying off in the corrals, while they're all aging. If this continues, we will be feeding geriatric herds for a long time to come.

Inbreeding is not universal, nor is it always a bad thing.
What inbreeding does is cut out the middle, leaving the best traits and the worst traits. Very defective foals are killed by a band's stallion, as are foals from an outside stallion. Wild mares will abandon a defective foal just like an elk will. Given time, wild horses will develop into an animal that is well suited for their range. The type varies with the range and the number of wild bands on it.

While some of the herds are inbred, other herds collect domesticated horses that get loose. And increasingly, domestic horses that are loaded up in a trailer, driven out to the country and turned loose are also joining wild herds in some places.
During the great recession, there were really a lot of abandoned horses that were turned loose when their owners couldn't afford to keep them but couldn't find the will to kill them.

Horses have natural predators. Mountain lions and wolves. But both those species don't have enough numbers to cull the herds. And the herds are not universally big problems, either. Idaho, for example, doesn't have many mustangs, but E. Oregon has more, and Nevada has more than Oregon. The wild herds migrate across state lines.

In the wild, horses don't live as long as when they are domesticated. The life span is shortened by at least 10 years or more, depending on where the horses are. A 15-year old wild horse is an old horse. That's middle age for a domestic horse.

Since most live on federal lands, the only agency best suited to control them is the BLM. At the same time, there is no one-stop solution for the BLM; each herd has to be managed in it's own way, best done by local BLM agents who know the territory, and the BLM must be allowed to cull when necessary.

That means the United States must allow some kind of slaughter houses to re-open, or to allow horses to be processed in the same houses that process beef and lamb. This would require the Dept. of Agriculture's involvement and cooperation.

And the citizenry must learn to accept the hard facts of life. We have a strong cultural distaste for horse flesh, but a healthy horse is basically no different than a healthy cow. When their meat is ground up, it's impossible to tell one from the other.

We readily allow beef, pork and chicken to be ground up and mixed, and we eat that mix all the time. Adding a bit of horse to the mix won't change the way it tastes, and it may be actually better for us, as the meat doesn't have any growth hormones, massive anti-biotics and the other stuff too many domestic animals are loaded up with now.

Most of all, the folks simply have to allow these solutions to happen and get used to them. There's still room for our mustangs, just as there's room for our buffalo, elk, wolves and everything else that's wild.

Our only problem is Sparkle Pony. If we don't start using some common sense, even though it's uncomfortable to think of, the present mess will only grow worse. There is no easy solution, there are no simple answers, and it's highly unlikely that humankind will ever use horses in great numbers again in the forseeable future.
The sooner the mustang problem is addressed realistically, the sooner their numbers will eventually become manageable. But it will take decades for that manageability to happen a bit at a time.

The other alternatives are all worse. I don't think people are ready to accept massive culls, where the horses are driven into pits and shot. I don't think we are ready to accept massive die-offs from nature

I don't think people will ever accept the return of the mustangers who once hunted the horses for profit, either, and I was around during those days. Those guys were, by and large, a pretty scabby bunch.

Sterilization is no answer until a one-shot sterilizer is invented. And even then, it's too slow a solution to reverse our current situation. The only good solution I can see is allowing a healthy cull that's best suited for a particular range and some way to process the carcasses once done to pay for the remainder's feed bill.

Allowing domestic processors is the real key, as this will also decrease the number of domestic horses that are no longer being cared for. If we don't want to eat them, we should be willing to let our dogs and cats do it for us.
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