Profoundly sad. Saw this on my news feed. I know the debate about the cost of keeping feral horses but it seems like that the solution is as bad as the problem. And I winced when the guy in question adopted a bunch of feral horses to run with his colts ? To make more surplus horses? WTF?
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It is a difficult situation. We need more qualified horse people to step up and adopt a mustang. We need to authorize the BLM to be able to follow up on adopters. They have no funding and no ability to enforce anything right now. Their budget is too low and the animal numbers are too high. Horses are very successful breeders. They have no real predators, especially with the large scale predator hunts going on. The increase in population will devastate very fragile rangeland if something isn’t done.
What many people don’t understand is the history of the rangelands out West. I’m actually working on a degree in natural resource management. The west suffered severe overgrazing as early as the late 1880s and restrictions were not put into place until after the Dust Bowl. It was easier for ranchers to run more stock than they were supposed to up until the 1960s and 1970s when the public took more of an interest in public lands. Since then, it’s about multi-use. The public wants to enjoy recreation on public lands, the ranchers want to run their livestock. Mining companies and drilling companies want to extract resources, and the wildlife, especially endangered wildlife, need protection. With so many conflicting interests, the land is much harder to manage than ever. Much of the rangeland is in better shape than it was 50 or 60 years ago because we know more about the ecosystems now. We also know how to estimate stocking rates for ranchers, which also must account for wildlife. Wild horses must be factored in as well. Wild horses and burros can be very destructive to the rangeland, but there are also ways they can help wildlife. Wild burros actually dig watering holes that are used by native wildlife, for example.
The stocking rates recommended for wild horses and burros is real and those numbers mean that going above that equals rangeland deterioration. When the BLM recommends removing wild horses from a rangeland, they are simultaneously lowering the stocking rates of ranchers because the land is deteriorating. Many fragile ecosystems can take decades to recover from overgrazing. In some desert ecosystems, it can take 100 years. If a rangeland deteriorates, the population of livestock and horses must be reduced drastically to keep the wildlife population healthy.
The BLM has operated in crisis mode for far too long. They need real money and real solutions. They need to be able to enforce the conditions for adoption and get more willing people to step up and take these animals home. Regardless of whether or not you agree with the current status of wild horses and burros, they have the right to be there, but they do not have the right to overpopulate at the expense of wildlife. They also cannot overpopulate at the expense of ranchers because that’s where our food comes from. Until this country eats more veggies, that’s how it’s going to be. Ranchers are getting old and their kids don’t want the job. The feedlots and slaughterhouses are consolidated so much that they set higher prices and the ranchers profit (cow/calf operations) has been dwindling for decades. People are moving to the West at an alarming rate and more rangeland is disappearing to become, yet another, housing development. The West is also suffering from more intense and longer lasting droughts. These problems are monumentous and difficult. We need real solutions but all the animals on the range must be considered as well as the aesthetics enjoyed by the public. That land belongs to all of us. Sadly, we also need the natural resource leases to keep from depending on other countries to supply our needs and make us vulnerable.
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Why haven’t they implemented sterilization protocols for the mares? What is it…PZP? Asking as a non-expert, Granted, it would take some time to bring the population down simply by “slowing the flow” versus an all-out cull. I know they use it in one small privately managed wild herd with success, and I think they used it on some of the unclaimed ferals that wander PR. But it’s been a while since I read up on that.
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Damn Thank you for your thoughts. It’s a lot.
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From the article that I read, the majority of the BLM budget is spent on long-term holding so that there isn’t enough left for many gathers or administration of birth control. I actually don’t have a problem with killing a large number of the mustangs in holding BUT there must be a viable solution to prevent the numbers from building up again. Also, I would not want to see the LTH mustangs sent to slaughter houses or rendering plants simply because the corruption and fiscal mismanagement that would inevitably accompany this. That would leave the problem of disposing of thousands of carcasses. No good, clean options when it comes to mustangs.
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BLM Mustangs have been being sent to slaughter for years; it’s not openly admitted to but the BLM knows about it.
There really isn’t a good answer on what to do with the mustangs and burros. They bring in tourism dollars to many western states and are less destructive on the land than cattle; but there are too many in holding (and it costs a lot of money to keep them there) and they haven’t been managed as well as they should have been.
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Sterilization is very expensive, unfortunately.
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There is a great book called “Wild Horse Country” by David Philipps. He covers the problem of the wild horse and the BLM. This is not new news.
LOL I just read the article… which is by David Philipps! The book is a GREAT read, highly recommended.
We have a similar problem with brumbies. Too many, not enough land, they do loads of damage as Australia is NOT designed for horses / hard-hoofed mammals. The greenies cry foul at any plan for sterilization. Not enough homes. Rounding them up cannot be done by chopper - passive trapping is mainly used, or brumby-running in some areas. So instead they get trucked to the doggers. I’d rather see them shot on site, as opposed to being trucked to a slaughterhouse.
What is the answer? No-one knows.
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I found one site that says $24 per dose and one that says $200 per dose, so not sure what is really the truth. On top of that you’d have to pay someone to go out and do the darting. Let’s just say $500 per time. So to dart one mare for 20 years is $10,000.
The Department of the Interior says it can cost up to $50,000 per horse to keep them in long term holding for their lifetime. Say we stopped that mare from having 5 foals that would have been rounded up and held. We just spent $10,000 to save $250,000. Obviously there may be some other factors in play, but seems cost effective to me. You will have to pay up front for the birth control but in the long term costs go way down and you don’t have a bunch of horses spending their lives in a pen.
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Some of their adoption requirements strike me as having the potential to funnel horses into adoptive “homes” that are yet another holding facility (Albeit a private one.) rather than homes where they would receive a genuine chance at correct training. I don’t know of a single farm here that has 6’ fences that are designed to be safe for horses, for example. I guess you could drag a round pen in. But then you’d be hard pressed to meet the shelter requirements unless you had the $$ to enclose an entire field in corral panels.
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Perhaps if sterilization was implemented then there would be far fewer mustangs to be rounded up and then we could move to round up procedures less traumatizing than being chased by helicopters.
I can see the logistical nightmare of tracking which mares had been sterilized and which hadn’t yet. Surely that would be easier than keeping a boat load of feral horses in feed lots though.
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Feral horses is a complicated problem.
One try to use sterilization found is that sterilized individuals were changing the normal herd behavior, there was more infighting and more aggression from individuals from other herds, as mares would not settle, kept coming in heat.
Those were decades ago trials and they decided for that and other reasons that was not quite working as intended.
Another good book on feral horse management and their issues is:
https://www.amazon.com/Oregons-Living-Legends-Horses-Ranges/dp/0615363539
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Yearlings only require a five foot fence.
I can’t right now, but next summer, I would love to do an HC yearling Mustang challenge of our own. We could do videos of homemade obstacle courses that we put together. Yearlings aren’t so hard to train. Most baby horses know about the same anyway because most people just throw them outside to grow up.
What do you say? Who’s up for it? After the year is up, you could sell a well-trained two year or keep them and take them to the next level.
Look at it this way, we’d be removing baby animals that could potentially make lots more babies in their lifetimes, or cost us taxpayers money sitting in holding.
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There are just a few more issues needing to be addressed. Aren’t all BLM mustangs branded and brand inspectors required to check? Or are the brand inspectors being paid off? If branded mustangs are being shipped why are there no inspection stops along the way? Why do so few people outside of California (I am not in California I’m just one of the few) understand the protections wild burros provide against wildfires and are beginning to deploy wild burros specifically for that purpose? Does anyone visiting here understand or even care about the full horror of how horses are slaughtered on the wrong side of the border or are you just going to sit back and debate over the price of bc for mares? What about the legal and financial fraud not to mention the federal laws violated by crossing state lines in the commission of frauds - felonies that come with long prison terms? And finally why is no one here talking about the decades long fraud of welfare ranching? There is actually one solution available but the beef producers, who are also major contributors to environmental degradation, won’t like it. Put the horses back out on the ranges; geld some stallions if you must. And most of all stop the decades long cattle rancher rip off of taxpayers and destruction of wildlands. Trolls, open mic for you now. I’m out.
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Those “ranchers” that some love to use to incense the gullible so they open their hearts and, more important, wallets and donate to the cause of the moment feral horses have become, bringing certain non-profits riches beyond pale, those ranchers have been for decades now strictly managed, unlike feral horses.
If someone has a cattle permit on federal land, they have many regulations to abide by and, unless someone is already living in those ranges, no one will touch those permits with a ten foot pole, they are more of a headache than worth the irritation of having to run cattle where the public will, from purposefully harass them, leave gates open where they are any, shoot them and vandalize water holes, etc.
There have been years where permits have been empty, no cattle grazed there, because there is an ongoing drought in many ranges.
Unlike feral horses, that have been starving or were fed, which compounds the problem of the degradation of the ranges those cause when overstocked.
There are feral herds that are properly managed, but many are not, because of, what else, those non-profit groups that live from the controversy interfere with their management.
There are native species horses are harming.
We ask those ranchers to graze minimally to protect native species, control how grazing permits are used, for decades now many barely have cattle in those ranges for six weeks in a year.
It is time we ask the government, if it is going to be feral horse breeders, that it also uses proper range management protocols for those horses, as is required for cattle and sheep.
This is a more complicated problem that blaming cattle grazing, that is tightly controlled and also is beneficial if we are talking about reducing fuel loads for fires, for a problem of our own making by not letting the range managers, well, manage properly, but kept their hands tied with those non-profit group’s lawsuits every time they try to … manage.
I too wonder how anyone getting a feral horse from the BLM could be selling them right off?
I think they don’t have possession until a year or more has passed, just to avoid those that would get one and turn it quickly for a few dollars more.
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Sure, but that balances against the grazing horses and donkeys destroy for those species.
We need to keep the horses in their ranges and control their numbers, in a few words, manage them properly.
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Yes of course. Just another viewpoint as we’ve always heard only the negative impact of mustangs on the land.
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Feral domestic horses are an invasive species in these arid lands.
They were given some specific ranges as a symbol of the pioneer days, not because they were a native species with their own natural habitat.
Managed as an invasive species, permitted as an historical symbol, if we let range managers manage them, there should not be a problem.
As that has not been possible, that is one more reason we are where we are today.
Doesn’t look like anyone will have a sensible way to solve this.
Too many now antagonistic interests in the game, the horses in captivity the losers right now.
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Again another view as we always hear ONLY the negative of feral horses. Are free ranging cattle indigenous?
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