Wild Horse Advisory Board Proposal to BLM to Euthanize Excess Mustangs

[VAspeedgoat]

The article I read here in the east alluded to this being for more grazing by cattle.

 

[sbhooper]

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.

Have you ever even been out on WSMR, Buzz? Oryx were made to survive and flourish in that habitat. They don't compete with squat. They can exist for long periods of time with no surface water and eat weeds and crap that most animals won't. The live in many areas that the muleys hardly exist in. Horses eat everything they can and shit on the rest. Burros do the same thing. Oryx never damage their habitat like feral rat horses do.

Before comparing horses to wild animals, you had better do your damn homework and go look at it for yourself-OH, I forgot, you cannot do that without a permit.

The worst problem muleys have is drought and mountain lions. I had friends that worked on the range and told me of the decimation of adult muley bucks by the lions. Lions do not even phase the oryx and have actually been killed by the oryx.

Some of the ranchers bitch about the oryx and I don't blame them for it. They are rough on fences and can chase cattle away from water. Ranchers complain about everything wild and that is why most animals are hunted. The horses, however, are not hunted and absolutely decimate range. I saw it in New Mexico for the 10+ years that I lived there and I also saw it in the even-more-fragile habitat north of Yuma, Arizona. The horses and burros decimated the vegetation, and fouled the water for the bighorn sheep, desert mulies and any other animals that could not compete.

I lived and worked around Oryx for the entire time that I was in New Mexico. They are phenomenal animals with a fantastic survival instinct and will to survive. Even mentioning them in same breath with horses is a travesty. I saw them almost daily and had a very rare opportunity to watch them at night on an IR scope, along with the rabbits and coyotes that were the only other animals in the habitat. They are not a detractor, but indeed a great addition to that desert habitat that is for the most part devoid of big animals.

Wild horses, like wild hogs, cannot be compared to animals that are, and always have been wild.

My rant is over.

P.S. I filled my freezer with three oryx, while I lived in NM and they are the best meat in the world. I don't particularly care to eat a horse.

 

[tjones]

Spot on Buzz. I have heard of plenty of land owners wanting to kill off coyotes to protect pheasants.

Oryx are as non native as it gets. Lots of Internet bio's defend animals like oryx and bitch about the "non native woof". Makes me laugh.

Gotta love the Internet.

 

[James Riley]

Have you ever even been out on WSMR, Buzz? Oryx were made to survive and flourish in that habitat. They don't compete with squat. They can exist for long periods of time with no surface water and eat weeds and crap that most animals won't. The live in many areas that the muleys hardly exist in. Horses eat everything they can and shit on the rest. Burros do the same thing. Oryx never damage their habitat like feral rat horses do.

Before comparing horses to wild animals, you had better do your damn homework and go look at it for yourself-OH, I forgot, you cannot do that without a permit.

The worst problem muleys have is drought and mountain lions. I had friends that worked on the range and told me of the decimation of adult muley bucks by the lions. Lions do not even phase the oryx and have actually been killed by the oryx.

Some of the ranchers bitch about the oryx and I don't blame them for it. They are rough on fences and can chase cattle away from water. Ranchers complain about everything wild and that is why most animals are hunted. The horses, however, are not hunted and absolutely decimate range. I saw it in New Mexico for the 10+ years that I lived there and I also saw it in the even-more-fragile habitat north of Yuma, Arizona. The horses and burros decimated the vegetation, and fouled the water for the bighorn sheep, desert mulies and any other animals that could not compete.

I lived and worked around Oryx for the entire time that I was in New Mexico. They are phenomenal animals with a fantastic survival instinct and will to survive. Even mentioning them in same breath with horses is a travesty. I saw them almost daily and had a very rare opportunity to watch them at night on an IR scope, along with the rabbits and coyotes that were the only other animals in the habitat. They are not a detractor, but indeed a great addition to that desert habitat that is for the most part devoid of big animals.

Wild horses, like wild hogs, cannot be compared to animals that are, and always have been wild.

My rant is over.

P.S. I filled my freezer with three oryx, while I lived in NM and they are the best meat in the world. I don't particularly care to eat a horse.

Oryx are filthy, non-native rats that need to be exterminated, along with every other non-native species. They were made to thrive in Africa, not America. Better do your homework. There is no such thing as no competition. Such a foolish notion presumes there was an empty niche before we showed up with our imports. Also, I'd like to extend an apology to the the native rats.

It's also incongruous to keep talking about all the places where only oryx are seen and then state they don't compete. Hmmmm? What's wrong with that picture? No one here is defending horses. They are defending the indig wildlife.

One final note: Horses should be exterminated from public land, yes, but at least they were indig to the end of the Pleistocene. Oryx, to my knowledge, were never here. They are our detritus.

 

[BuzzH]

Hooper,

Yeah, I have been on WSMR.





The oryx we found were not out in the Greasewood "crap" eating weeds, rather living right in the same canyons as desert sheep and mule deer. Yeah, we saw oryx out on the flats, but we found more of them living in the steep country. Check the pictures, they aren't eating weeds and greasewood.

I also watched what they were feeding on, where they bedded, and they were eating the same thing as the mule deer we saw (actually saw some very good bucks).

To say they don't compete for forage with mule deer and desert sheep is pure bullchit, they do, and are.

IF they're so "suited" for New Mexico, why did half of them have their ears frozen off looking like the oryx version of Shrek?

Again, I find the selective outrage very odd. Not that I'm all for killing off every wild horse, or oryx, only amazed at the length of excuses to allow one feral to thrive, while persecuting another being the absolute height of hypocrisy.

 

[James Riley]

As the kids say these days: "Snap!"

 

[Nemont]

What did pheasants ever to to anybody?

Nemont

 

[James Riley]

What did pheasants ever to to anybody?

Nemont

As I tell my pets: They take up perfectly good space and consume perfectly good air, water and food that might better be used by more deserving creatures. Of course, some folks tell me that too. So there is that.

 

[Nemont]

They take up perfectly good space and consume perfectly good air, water and food that might better be used by more deserving creatures.

Which creature did pheasant replace or out compete? When I hunt pheasants there are a lot of whitetails enjoying the same space on the river bottoms/ag lands. We are never going back to 1803 and the days of Lewis and Clark regardless of the APR says and some introduced species have developed in multiple millions of dollars industries in areas that have no industry other than ag.

I get that pheasants and huns are not here naturally and have been introduced. So have the walleye, small mouth bass, chinook salmon, lake trout etc that I fish for in Fort Peck Res. which itself is a man made reservoir but tens of millions of dollars are put into boats, tackle, lodging, fuel etc to come here as a destination to catch these fish.

I don't demand more exotics be released but it seems like a fake argument to try and put the tooth paste back in the tube.

Nemont

 

[Irrelevant]

There's certainly a lot of gray area between feral horses and pheasants. I agree with Nemont that the pheasants don't seem to be harming anything but the occasional south dakota windshield. I would push for removal of excess, or better yet all feral horses, but think money and time would be better spent elsewhere than trying to remove all non-natives.

 

[Backstrap]

They compete with other animals that are trying to access scarce food resources in the winter. There's only so much food during a cold snowy winter. Pheasants eat some of this food, reducing what's available to other animals. It's pretty simple really. Heck, even roosters out compete hens in the winter due to their larger size.

That said, I love pheasants and pheasant hunting! I try my best to knock down those noxious birds rooster populations every year Partridge as well. Adding collared doves to the list this year.

 

[James Riley]

Which creature did pheasant replace or out compete? When I hunt pheasants there are a lot of whitetails enjoying the same space on the river bottoms/ag lands. We are never going back to 1803 and the days of Lewis and Clark regardless of the APR says and some introduced species have developed in multiple millions of dollars industries in areas that have no industry other than ag.

I get that pheasants and huns are not here naturally and have been introduced. So have the walleye, small mouth bass, chinook salmon, lake trout etc that I fish for in Fort Peck Res. which itself is a man made reservoir but tens of millions of dollars are put into boats, tackle, lodging, fuel etc to come here as a destination to catch these fish.

I don't demand more exotics be released but it seems like a fake argument to try and put the tooth paste back in the tube.

Nemont

As Buzz said above: "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."

I think the stronger point is this: Nature abhors a vacuum and I strongly doubt there was a single niche in North America that was not already filled when Europeans showed up. Thus, any non-native species is, de facto, competing with a native species. We may have created the vacuum and opened the niche before the non-native species was introduced, but nevertheless, if we don't get rid of the non-natives then it will always be easy for us to sit around and say "Hey, I don't see them out-competing anything." Of course we don't: there is little left to provide any competition! Get rid of the pheasants and you will see what they were out-competing.

I get your tooth paste-tube analogy. However, the idea that it can't be done sounds a lot like the same mentality that, honestly and with all sincerity, once said: "There is no way we could ever wipe them all out! It's an endless cornucopia of bison, the skies are dark with pigeons and you can walk across the Columbia without getting wet!"

We have proven that we can do the impossible. We just have to have the incentive. $$$$. I say let's do it on our public lands. Why is a pheasant worth more or more fun to hunt than an indig species?

In the end, we should try playing second fiddle once in a while, especially on public land.

 

[npaden]

I know around here the pheasants forever chapter does as much if not more good for the quail than it does for the pheasants. I don't even have pheasants on my place but the local pheasants forever chapter will give me free seed to plant for wildlife.

As far as the toothpaste analogy, I'm very curious to see how it works with removing the lake trout from Yellowstone lake on a long term basis. I think they are closing in on $10,000,000 spent on removal of lake trout and they are making progress, but I'm thinking if they stop the removal process it will only be a few years before they take the lake over again.

P.S. - Wild horses do a ton of damage and are very aggressive toward native species. I'm all for removing them all. I think the same type of rules should apply to them as feral hogs or those pesky feral llamas.

 

[James Riley]

I know around here the pheasants forever chapter does as much if not more good for the quail than it does for the pheasants. I don't even have pheasants on my place but the local pheasants forever chapter will give me free seed to plant for wildlife.

As far as the toothpaste analogy, I'm very curious to see how it works with removing the lake trout from Yellowstone lake on a long term basis. I think they are closing in on $10,000,000 spent on removal of lake trout and they are making progress, but I'm thinking if they stop the removal process it will only be a few years before they take the lake over again.

P.S. - Wild horses do a ton of damage and are very aggressive toward native species. I'm all for removing them all. I think the same type of rules should apply to them as feral hogs or those pesky feral llamas.

The Yellowstone Lake thing is something else that gets me riled. If we created a market for them and could somehow prevent a scam or danger to the natives, then you can bet they would be extinct in short order. Greed can do wonders, if channeled properly.

The scam reminds me of a story. I remember reading about kids killing rabbits for the bounty. They found where the Sheriff was dumping the scalps and they'd bring them around for another payment. Greed needs a good harness.

I can also see the natives getting wiped out in a Lake Trout extinction process. However, I think people that are smarter than me could probably create a market incentive and tax payer dollars could be used to clear the lake.

 

[RobG]

Which creature did pheasant replace or out compete? When I hunt pheasants there are a lot of whitetails enjoying the same space on the river bottoms/ag lands. We are never going back to 1803 and the days of Lewis and Clark regardless of the APR says and some introduced species have developed in multiple millions of dollars industries in areas that have no industry other than ag.

I get that pheasants and huns are not here naturally and have been introduced. So have the walleye, small mouth bass, chinook salmon, lake trout etc that I fish for in Fort Peck Res. which itself is a man made reservoir but tens of millions of dollars are put into boats, tackle, lodging, fuel etc to come here as a destination to catch these fish.

I don't demand more exotics be released but it seems like a fake argument to try and put the tooth paste back in the tube.

Nemont

I know whitetails aren't native to SW Montana, some farmer thought it would be a good idea to transplant them for food - wish I could find their exact range, but I'm guessing whitetails aren't native to your area. Carp were introduced to MT as a food source and considered a great success when established. We hit/miss with introduced species, and when we get it wrong the impacts are severe. That said, Buzz's point is way overstated and misses the bigger issue that the opposition to things like horses is they do a lot of damage, are very hard to control, and have virtually no positive impacts, whereas pheasants have little negative impact and provide many benefits.

The argument of "hypocrisy" of not wanting some non-native species while wanting others doesn't belong at all in this discussion... people are opposing horses because they have negative financial impacts, not because they are non-native. The same people oppose native predators and omg that profit killing sagebrush.

 

[Ben Lamb]

It's not the pheasant that displaces native wildlife, it's the cultivation of soil. Sure, you get overlap with Sharpies, but not as much w/ Sage Grouse. Not sure about Prairie Chickens.

Stocked reservoirs as Nemont pointed out are a better corollary, IMO.

Regardless, nether of those species have the impact to remaining sage brush country that feral horses do.

 

[bobbydean]

I am all for keeping the exotics in New Mexico: Barbary, Ibex, Oryx, and a few other minor populations. The feral horse I do not like. Do not want to hunt them. Do not want to kill them. Ain't no right answer. I love the horse adoption, but it doesn't make a dent.

Basically, I do not know.

 

[BuzzH]

I know whitetails aren't native to SW Montana, some farmer thought it would be a good idea to transplant them for food - wish I could find their exact range, but I'm guessing whitetails aren't native to your area. .

What bar did you hear that in?

How much liquor was involved and what proof (pun there)?

I don't buy that whitetail were "brought in" by a farmer as a food source. There's a big difference between humans changing habitat to a more favorable condition that favor a native species than transplanting a non-native.

Every piece of literature I've ever read, whitetails absolutely are native to Montana and have expanded their range due to human caused habitat change.

So, if I'm reading your last post right, it would be OK if Montana brought in a bunch of exotics like Texas has...sika deer, fallow, axis, etc. so long as someone is making money from them?

I don't get it...even in the case of exotics, tolerance is based on social values and economic gain over how that exotic may impact the native wildlife. Would it be OK to allow Lake Trout to flourish in Yellowstone lake if there was an economic gain to the Park?

There is a lot of hypocrisy in that...no matter how much you claim there isn't.

What if wild horse hunting were allowed and tags sold for more than a pronghorn or deer? What then, do we place a higher value on feral horses than a pronghorn or deer? Do we start "feral horses forever" chapters in NV, MT, WY, OR???

A feral animal is a feral animal...economics and social tolerance don't change that. Like I've already said, there is very little, if any, consistency in how we deal with feral animals.

 

[Nemont]

As for removal of wild horses, congress has taken that card out of the deck. Ever read the preamble to the Wild Horse and Burro Act

Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols
of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life
forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these
horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of
Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture,
branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the
area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.

The act goes on to spell out a lot of do's and shall's for the Sec. of the Interior but the law starts with the notion that wild horses and burro's are akin to the bald eagle as a symbol of our nation and as such are provide protection from being killed off.

Now I don't believe that but I can read and that is what the law says.




RobG,

I think in my reading of the the Lewis and Clark journals there is a specific passage about their camp at the Three Forks where Capt. Lewis notes that they have not killed a mule deer and all the venison was from the "common" long tailed deer that are like those of the United States, which he means those he saw in Virginia.

Nemont

 

[tjones]

I am all for keeping the exotics in New Mexico: Barbary, Ibex, Oryx, and a few other minor populations. The feral horse I do not like. Do not want to hunt them. Do not want to kill them. Ain't no right answer. I love the horse adoption, but it doesn't make a dent.

Basically, I do not know.

Exotic's are good as long as they are exotic's we like. Roger that.