Wild Horse Advisory Board Proposal to BLM to Euthanize Excess Mustangs

[edbentle]

Hello all,

I don't know if any of you have heard about this proposal, so I thought I would post a link to an article with a Q&A with one of the Advisory Board members Ben Masters. It is certainly a big conservation issue of our time. The board voted 7-1 last week to propose the euthanasia or adoption of the excess mustangs in BLM holding facilities and the future round up and euthanasia of the excess mustangs on the range. Once at manageable levels, the Wild Horse population would be controlled through the use of contraceptive darts.

To put that in perspective that is the euthanasia of 45,000 horses in holding and over the next several years the euthanasia of at least that many on the range.

My thoughts: It has to be done. Period. The range can't support that many horses, and the biodiversity has been slammed because of them.

I know a common argument on here is going to be to let the states manage the Wild Horses as game animals and let us hunters manage the populations, and in theory I totally agree with that sentiment. I certainly wouldn't turn up my nose at a bunch of horse meat. But I also think hunting the horses would not be worth the damage to our image as hunters.

http://www.horsenation.com/2016/09/...nasia-of-excess-mustangs-qa-with-ben-masters/

 

[Oneye]

Hello all,

I don't know if any of you have heard about this proposal, so I thought I would post a link to an article with a Q&A with one of the Advisory Board members Ben Masters. It is certainly a big conservation issue of our time. The board voted 7-1 last week to propose the euthanasia or adoption of the excess mustangs in BLM holding facilities and the future round up and euthanasia of the excess mustangs on the range. Once at manageable levels, the Wild Horse population would be controlled through the use of contraceptive darts.

To put that in perspective that is the euthanasia of 45,000 horses in holding and over the next several years the euthanasia of at least that many on the range.

My thoughts: It has to be done. Period. The range can't support that many horses, and the biodiversity has been slammed because of them.

I know a common argument on here is going to be to let the states manage the Wild Horses as game animals and let us hunters manage the populations, and in theory I totally agree with that sentiment. I certainly wouldn't turn up my nose at a bunch of horse meat. But I also think hunting the horses would not be worth the damage to our image as hunters.

http://www.horsenation.com/2016/09/...nasia-of-excess-mustangs-qa-with-ben-masters/

I agree, it needs to be done. Once at manageable levels it will be much more sustainable and cost effective for the BLM. I'm not against wild horses, but I am against the levels they are at now, it needs to be brought down. I hope the horse activists groups don't stop a plan that is both wise for the horse, native wildlife, and the range. Between wild horses in holding facilities and fire costs, I don't know how the BLM even functions. If fire borrowing and the horse issue can be fixed, they might could actually do their jobs of managing the lands they oversee.

 

[Hunting Wife]

Very pragmatic view and vote by the committee. Sportsmen will need to be vocal in supporting this recommendation and any action in response to it if we hope to be heard above the din of outraged horse advocates.

 

[5Speedjim]

Feral horses should be treated like feral hogs. A non-native invasive species. Make more room for native animals. A couple years ago they were trying to stop pheasant stocking on some federal land on the east coast because they aren't native, even though they aren't invasive

 

[Oneye]

My recommendation, flood the BLM with support, becasue they are gonna get a lot of blowback here.

 

[James Riley]

I hope the slack isn't taken up by cattle and/or sheep. If the ranchers think this is a good idea, I'll take their support simply because we might need it, but trading one invasive species for another does no good for the indigs. Why we allow horses to get special treatment, I'll never know, but it is what it is. Thanks, Wild Horse Annie.

 

[shootbrownelk]

I hope the slack isn't taken up by cattle and/or sheep. If the ranchers think this is a good idea, I'll take their support simply because we might need it, but trading one invasive species for another does no good for the indigs. Why we allow horses to get special treatment, I'll never know, but it is what it is. Thanks, Wild Horse Annie.

Exactly....trading one wildlife habitat destroyer for more Sheep and Cattle makes no sense. The ranchers would love it if the horses were removed...more grazing and water sources for their stock....at the taxpayer's expense.

 

[joelhunter]

There most assuredly will be litigation over this decision, and it will take years to implement--if it does go into effect. So my question is, which of the hunting organizations will put there money where their mouth is and invest in taking an amicus position in favor of the BLM decision?

 

[James Riley]

Who is capable of standing up and calling a spade a spade to the politically correct in such a fashion as be understood and unimpeachable for having done so? This is the *only* way get the job done. Niceties and science and sensitivity to the heart-felt feelings of little girls and horse lovers everywhere simply will not do. In fact, it will only delay things and make them worse.

We need the same kind of person who could stand before the American people and explain to them that innocent children are going to die in X campaign because X threat to their own children is so existential and immediate that bombing must proceed regardless, now.

People understand S they don't agree with if it's put right. But they also smell a rat when S is sugar coated or full of empty rhetoric or buried in gibberish they don't want to parse. They won't do S about global warming until they are personally affected or until a person they trust explains it to them in a way they trust.

 

[Irrelevant]

Holy cow I can't believe some of the comments to that article. I think "we" definitely should add a few comments in support. This is the best proposal I've heard yet put forth by pro-horse groups/representatives.

 

[Gr8bawana]

Being from NV something definitely needs to be done about the feral horse population. Everywhere you go from southern to northern NV there are horses everywhere.
According to the BLM as of March 2016 Nevada has a population of 31,979 feral horses. That is 5 times the # of the next highest.
Wyoming comes in second at 6535
Utah 5440
Cal 4925
Oregon 3785

 

[Oneye]

Being from NV something definitely needs to be done about the feral horse population. Everywhere you go from southern to northern NV there are horses everywhere.
According to the BLM as of March 2016 Nevada has a population of 31,979 feral horses. That is 5 times the # of the next highest.
Wyoming comes in second at 6535
Utah 5440
Cal 4925
Oregon 3785

... And Nevada is the driest state in the nation, Utah is number 2. The BLM has tried for years to do things but is met with litigation at every turn. The horse lovers are the exact people who created the point we are at now, and I really hope this isn't nixed, although I would only give it about a 5% chance of ever happening, and even that's probably high.

 

[James Riley]

Off topic story:

My sister used to round up wild horses for the BLM out of Rock Springs, Wyoming, Red Desert country. (That's Bureau of Land Management, not Black Lives Matter) I watched her work one day as the chopper brought them in generally and then my sister and other BLM riders would come down behind and push the horses into corrals for loading on semi stock trucks for transportation to Rock Springs. My old man (RIP) was there too, with an 8mm movie camera and I have what follows on tape.

Once in the round corral, the horses were pushed up alleys, one horse wide, made of heavy planks and about eight feet high. Almost all of this particular group, about 30 horses, had been loaded on trucks, but the last one in line was this big, gnarly old black stud, just covered with scar tissue, tore-up ears and long, flowing black mane and tail that liked to touch the ground. Right out of a Hollywood movie, I shit you naught. Most dangerous horse you could imagine. He was what directors dream of.

My sister and others had been using hot shots and whips, to move these animals up. He was last in line but there were still a few horses in front of him, blocking the way. This SOB jumps right up and over that alley so fast you can hardly see it happen; like that wall of wood was not even there. He hit the ground and ran up the steep bank of this arroyo, about fifteen feet or so, topping out on the wide open high plains, and began to run away.

Here's the deal: About twenty feet out he raises his tail way up high and raises his head way up high, and turns his head to the left and back as he trots away, looking at those cowboys and the camera and I swear to God, if a horse could flip the bird and say "F YOU, YOU P***Y MFRs! SUCK ON THIS!" then it was him.

Someday I'm going to get that film converted to digital and put up on the internet. I bet it gets some views, especially from horse lovers.

I am no fan of wild horses or any domestic or feral animal or plant on my public lands, but I got to admire them, doing their best with the hand they've been dealt, and I can see where the romance comes from. That stud was everything a horse should be. I'm all for killing them, but his life mattered.

 

[sbhooper]

I saw how those rats destroyed the desert area on the ranges around Holloman and White Sands in New Mexico. I was out on the range hunting oryx and the land was in terrible shape. This was a dry period and habitat was decimated by those horses. There were some laying around that were so weak, that they could not stand-but we could not finish them off.

The game manager tried to do a little incognito control one day, he told me. Before he and the MP that helped him got back to headquarters, the horse/burro loonies from California were already on their ass. They obviously had a leak in the office.

They finally got 10 million dollars appropriated to remove that garbage and I think they took most of them off-at our expense. The worst thing that ever happened is when they officially protected them to start with. It is about time that a reasonable policy was in place to deal with them.

 

[James Riley]

I was out on the range hunting oryx and the land was in terrible shape.

Hopefully they kill all the oryx while they are at it.

 

[BuzzH]

Its not like the oryx are native...feral as well.

I never get the hierarchy of how people rate their tolerance for animals and the way they "justify" their like or hatred for an animal.

You have some that will tolerate a feral/non-native like oryx, that are 100% in competition with mule deer and desert sheep on WSMR. Then turn around and hate horses for competing with oryx, as well as the native wildlife.

Another classic example is pheasants. Landowners protect them like they're a native species, my thought is they're akin to a starling or knapweed. To top it off, a group was formed (pheasants forever) to enhance them! Meanwhile native birds like sage grouse and prairie chickens are about to be listed.

Hunters on the one hand whine about the groups that support wild horses, but systematically send money to a group that enhances non-natives like pheasants, turkeys in many areas that they aren't native to, introduced mountain goats in areas they were not native to, etc.

Pretty tough for me to reconcile that thought process with anything other than being totally inconsistent.

The only difference I'm seeing is that populations of native wildlife, as well as non-native feral "wildlife" is that both can be controlled via hunting.

 

[James Riley]

The only difference I'm seeing is that populations of native wildlife, as well as non-native feral "wildlife" is that both can be controlled via hunting.

Spot on, 100%. Ranchers could make the same argument, in that cattle and sheep (unlike horses) can be controlled. The method is the only thing that separates feral/invasive species hunters from ranchers. In the end, they are all invasive rats. Had we not walked over 13k years ago, I'd figure we are too. We pride ourselves on knowing better. HA!

 

[Bambistew]

Spot on Buzz. Don't forget to add in Trout Unlimited... and all the non-native trash trout species throughout the L48.

 

[Irrelevant]

TU also does a helluva lot of work for native trout species.

 

[RobG]

TU also does a helluva lot of work for native trout species.

25 years ago you couldn't even get a book that acknowledged the many different species of native cutthroat and other salmonids like Apache. TU has led the way in changing that and protecting the habitat these fish need, which is not to say that some chapters don't stock trout where they don't belong (hear me Guadalupe chapter? )