Wild Horse Advisory Board Proposal to BLM to Euthanize Excess Mustangs

[RobG]

What bar did you hear that in?

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

At least western MT... Ben Lamb told me about the deer around Twin Bridges so blame him.

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?

Buzz, it's possible you are not reading right, but I expect you are just being obnoxious as usual. This isn't that hard to understand...

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.

Buzz, unless you move yourself and the entire agricultural and other industries back to Europe and leave this place to the natives it is you that is being a hypocrite on this issue. The west now is thoroughly invaded with non-natives. Some species are beneficial to ourselves so we keep them. Some species proved not to be beneficial so we want them gone. Other species compete with natives that we have recently come to value like cutthroat so we try to eradicate them. It really takes a lot of over analysis to come away from this with the confusion you are exhibiting.

Nemont - I didn't know about L&C around Three Forks, but were L&C killing whitetails up by you? That's what I was getting at. Ag has changed the "native" habitat allowing whitetails to move in. It doesn't matter much as I was just poking you for the pheasant/whitetail observation since neither probably was historically present.

 

[noharleyyet]

Zebra's gonna be so passe'

 

[BuzzH]

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

RobG, read this post...^^^

Glad that your god complex allows you to determine which exotics need to stay and which need to go.

The exact same argument/complex that many make for (native) endangered species needing to stay or go. The ones that aren't going to compete with an oil and gas well, agriculture, logging, etc. etc AND don't cost us anything to recover....yeah, we'll be fine with recovering those. The rest need to go.

 

[RobG]

Buzz - ... God complex... you obviously have a lot of time to whine about some really stupid and impractical sh*t. I'm happy for you man... but I don't have the luxury. Carry on...

 

[Deleted member 20812]

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.

This is certainly a paradox that I've wrestled with a great deal. I absolutely love to hunt chukars, pheasants, and Hungarian partridge. Not a single one of them is a native species. I've had amazing days of catching rainbow and brown trout in the North Platte drainage.

I'm as guilty as anyone, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

 

[James Riley]

I'm as guilty as anyone, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

That's my kind of thinking. It's people who don't recognize such things about themselves that make it so hard to address issues. We have to start somewhere and that there is a good spot.

 

[James Riley]

I think I understand the allegations of hypocrisy and here's why: Distinguishing non-natives on subjective, relative, personal opinions of worth or worthlessness is a non-starter. Just look at those horse people. They got an Act passed in their favor. If we had that kind of zeal then we'd have the "Public Lands Shall Remain Public Lands Act" passed. So, a pheasant guy likes pheasants and thinks they are innocuous. The horse people line up with horses. Chukar people with chukar, wolf with wolf, etc. The only common denominator is they are non-native. Picking one over the other would cause a reasonable person to raise an eyebrow. Indicting another for hypocrisy doesn't necessarily mean we have clean hands.

That said, the preamble to any Act is legally worthless. Courts will not entertain it and high-flying rhetoric comes down to Earth hard in light of the actual implementation language in the Act proper. When the management agencies have equal or superior (organic Act) charges that conflict, a resolution will always leave someone bitching. But horses and burros will, eventually, have to take second place if they interfere with other mandates. We should make sure any corrections favor wildlife and not cattle/sheep.

As to whitetail, those bastards are working their way west from the plains in to the mountains where I live. Sad to see, in my opinion.

 

[Northwoods Labs]

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

I would definitely agree with this statement. I feel the reason horses are loathed and oryx are loved is because one can hunt oryx. In the great lakes we have charter captains complaining that we are cutting the stocking of pacific salmon. They feel we should be cutting our stocking of lake trout instead, even though lake trout are a native species.

I like to fish brown trout, largemouth bass, and muskies where they did not exist. I'd love to get my dog out to South Dakota to hunt pheasants. I've thought a lot about these not being native species to a specific area, but have always justified by the fact that I do not feel they are doing any harm. Many of the lakes I fish the bass and muskies are doing no harm. Some say browns out-compete brookies, but if the habitat is there I personally haven't found this to be the case. I'm not sure what native species pheasants are harming, whatever it is, I feel our land use practices are harming that species much more than a pheasant is.

 

[Nemont]

That said, the preamble to any Act is legally worthless. Courts will not entertain it and high-flying rhetoric comes down to Earth hard in light of the actual implementation language in the Act proper. When the management agencies have equal or superior (organic Act) charges that conflict, a resolution will always leave someone bitching. But horses and burros will, eventually, have to take second place if they interfere with other mandates. We should make sure any corrections favor wildlife and not cattle/sheep.

Read the act and then riddle me this, why is the BLM currently paying to "house" 44,000 wild horses and burro's if these animals were not considered a national symbol? The preamble to the acts does mean something because it spells out the intent of the act as well as the reasoning of congress.


From the USSC Statutory Interpretation: General Principles
and Recent Trends:

Preambles (“Whereas Clauses”)
Preambles, or “whereas clauses,” precede the enacted language, have no “operative effect,”223
“are not part of the act,” and consequently “cannot enlarge or confer powers, nor control the
words of the act, unless they are doubtful or ambiguous.”224Nonetheless, “whereas clauses”
sometimes serve the same purpose as findings and purposes sections, and can provide useful
insight into congressional concerns and objectives.225 Preambles can sometimes help resolve
ambiguity in enacted language.

 

[Gr8bawana]

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

Exotics are good as long as we like them and are managed unlike feral horses that are running rampant.

 

[James Riley]

Read the act and then riddle me this, why is the BLM currently paying to "house" 44,000 wild horses and burro's if these animals were not considered a national symbol? The preamble to the acts does mean something because it spells out the intent of the act as well as the reasoning of congress.


From the USSC Statutory Interpretation: General Principles
and Recent Trends:

1. The BLM does it because they have not been forced not to. Apparently things are getting so bad, that that forcing is in the offing. Hence the OP and this thread. Further, when their organic Acts and other acts like the Taylor Grazing Act, etc. are brought up for the conflicts specifically created by the Horse/Burro Act, and when you have that specific "case or controversy", then they will either throw the Horses under the bus or they will side with the horses and the court will force them abide their other obligations.

2. You highlighted the wrong language. Here, let me fix it for you: Preambles (“Whereas Clauses”)
Preambles, or “whereas clauses,” precede the enacted language, have no “operative effect,”223
“are not part of the act,” and consequently “cannot enlarge or confer powers, nor control the
words of the act, unless they are doubtful or ambiguous.”224Nonetheless, “whereas clauses”
sometimes serve the same purpose as findings and purposes sections, and can provide useful
insight into congressional concerns and objectives.225 Preambles can sometimes help resolve
ambiguity in enacted language.

The "USSC Statutory Interpretation: General Principles and Recent Trends" that you have cited is known as "hornbook law" which itself means nothing in the face of the actual judicial language and cases from which it sprang. It will get you laughed out of court if you use in it lieu of stare decisis or the operative language. You'd be better off finding the cases which underlie that secondary authority and then we can distinguish them on the merits, or not.

You have also failed to show that the operative language of the Act is doubtful or ambiguous. Until that is done, the preamble is worthless and will not be considered.

 

[John Meyer]

I wouldn't be opposed if the culled horses are processed and given to food banks, etc.

The issue becomes more complicated when you are dealing with competition for forage between cows and the horses.

 

[Zach]

I wouldn't be opposed if the culled horses are processed and given to food banks, etc.

The issue becomes more complicated when you are dealing with competition for forage between cows and the horses.

You willing to put that meat on your plate? or better yet, your kids.

 

[Jorgy]

Some wild horses from yesterdays 4th season hunt outside of craig colorado, short and tee shirt weather. They sure are fun to watch


this is my new friend Herman the Ermine - we ate lunch together and watched the horses. He didn't feel very confident to leave the sage as he has already turned winter color and I was in a tee shirt being blinded by the sun.

 

[Gerald Martin]

We could round up all the illegal immigrants and send them back to Mexico on feral horses. Might save us some taxpayer money, give them transportation and food and we all win.... Trump'll get er done.

 

[James Riley]

You willing to put that meat on your plate? or better yet, your kids.

As far as the meat itself is concerned, sure, why not?

 

[Bowhunter65]

A lot of red tap if you ask me to adapt a mustang, get rid of any mustang older the four years of age and give the mustangs under four years of age away free,https://www.blm.gov/adoptahorse/howtoadopt.php, look at the process . Make it the new owners responsibility to geld the studs. You can manage theses horses to make great pack horses and mountain horses, super tuff with a lot of go. If any of you have Netflixs, watch the movie Unbranded, great documentary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvn021JlpVM

And yes I believe in putting the major part of this mustang herd down, but like I said, cut through some red tap. Horses are a lot of work year round, I put up 25 ----- 30 tons a year to fuel and feed our families 8 QH's and we use the sh!@@ out of them.

 

[OverlordBear]

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

Yes sir that is correct

 

[EdP]

I don't see making horses a game species as a solution with any merit what so ever. Not enough folks are interested in hunting horses to effectively control the population and the anti flak would be constant. Controlling numbers via culling is the only thing that makes sense. Same for burros. I'm frankly tired of my federal tax money being spent to keep and feed useless invasive animals.

 

[COEngineer]

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

That is a classic argument made by the horse lovers (is there a better term? Lot of people love horses, but some of them don't care about any other species). I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but that's something we can fight about after the horses have been de-populated.