by JJ Sutton
Colorado – -(Ammoland.com)- Hunters are classified as the largest contributing body of conservationists in North America.
After decades of experience, it is known worldwide as the “North American Model” and is being used globally in further conservation efforts.
Thru their individual love of the outdoors Hunters contribute with their fees, licenses, excise taxes, permits, education, and consumerism. Hunters fund a big part of management efforts for habitat, public lands, and animal species. It’s the Hunters and Outdoorsmen’s generosity thru charities, groups, and giving that funds large non-governmental conservation efforts that affect positive changes to public land, access, game habitat, individual species health and population management plans, and can even be credited for helping save some endangered or re-generating at risk game animal populations.
Hunters are starting to connect the dots where invasive species or feral species affect their game animal populations and habitats.
Notably and easily documented is the feral hog costs to the agricultural industries and the dollar amounts Farmers & Ranchers suffer from this invasion, hunters also suffer from lost habitat for game animals. The Lion Fish invasion off the coast of Florida is gaining documented damages as well and other invasive reptiles (snakes) are decimating some habitats.
Feral Horses
One area Hunters are JUST starting to realize is causing damage to game animal habitats is the highly politicized mismanagement of feral horses. Hunters are losing game animal populations in once coveted hunting areas for Mule Deer, Elk and other game animals due to the habitat damages caused by feral horses and the total mismanagement of their population numbers. These impacts are costly but also are going to have long-term effects on game animal habitats that could take decades; if ever to recover from.
Feral horses are NOT treated the same as “cute” little feral hogs are treated as an invasive species to our wildlands. There is NO season, NO limit, and NO mercy in the fight against feral hogs. Feral horses are considered oh so much more romantic, up to an including actual laws brought forth in the 70s by a school teacher using elementary kids to influence a couple politicians (No science, No facts, No well-funded lobbyists whispering in the ears, but a couple politicians influenced towards a decision by kids as puppets for a hidden agenda.). I wager that feral horses are causing as much if not more in damages both to sensitive habitats and cost wise as feral hogs are causing.
Get the Wild Horse Facts
See and review the fact sheets published by the National Horse & Burro Rangeland Management Coalition who is helping and advocating for a direct response approach with ideas on how to manage the feral horse populations within the current legal population requirements. The problem is that non-adoptable and overpopulated captured feral horses are costing the taxpayers approximately $50,000,000 (That’s $50 MILLION) annually just to feed and care for. That number could double if the horse population was grown to the legal management numbers the law states are supposed to be on the ranges.
That does NOT include the dollars it is costing in damages to ranchers & farmers, to our States in lost Hunting revenues, and the incalculable cost in damages that our habitats are suffering due to the overpopulation of horses on the wildlands.
Fact Sheet # 1 : https://www.wildhorserange.org/uploads/2/6/0/7/26070410/nhbrmc_factsheet1_overview-may.16.pdf
Fact Sheet # 1 : https://www.wildhorserange.org/uploads/2/6/0/7/26070410/nhbrmc_factsheet2_managementoptions-may.16.pdf
Wild or Feral Horses, What To Do?
Hunters MUST realize the impacts this issue brings directly to key areas of interest for them and not sit on the fence hoping it gets handled. Hunters need their voices in the conversation and they need to be advocating for the conservation of their game land habitats on all fronts. Hunters need to educate themselves on this complex, political and environmental disaster and why the laws are being ignored. Hunters should realize why Federal Agencies are being prevented from doing their jobs due to outside intimidation and influence from loud minority advocacy groups on the wrong side of logic and science. Now is the time for Hunters to get involved and help make sense of the issues and make sound science-based, responsible decisions that allow for the correct population numbers and protecting wildlife habitats and game animal populations. Your voices of reason, true conservationism, and responsible management are needed now more than ever.
- Hunters have a long history of responsible and successful conservation efforts. Hunters also have experience working with the private sector and the government sector on habitat and wildlife management issues.
- Hunters bring to the table large numbers of reasonable thinking true conservation & management ideas and experience.
- Hunters bring to the table advocacy and funding critically needed to balance the imbalance of well-funded loud minority groups failing to listen to science and reason.
Feral Horses, Where to Start?
National Horse & Burro Rangeland Management Coalition is an organization helping forge alliances and partnerships (see their list of partnerships below; you will be surprised) to help raise awareness for the sound management of our habitats and wildlife as related to the feral horse issues. It truly is a complex issue with much misinformation from the minority groups. Hunters who get educated on the subject will learn how important the issue really is and how well it is aligned to their own conservation minded passions. Sign up and follow their bulletins, social media, etc and get educated on the real issues at hand that include scientific and solid minded ideas for control, conservation, and management. One of the groups you already support is probably a member of their coalition already!
Coalition partnerships of the National Horse & Burro Rangeland Management Coalition:
Steering Committee
- National Rifle Association
- Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
- Mule Deer Foundation
- The Wildlife Society – Coalition Chair
- Wild Sheep Foundation
- Safari Club International
- Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation
- Masters of Foxhounds Association
- Public Lands Council
- Public Lands Foundation
- Society for Range Management
- National Wildlife Refuge Association
- American Farm Bureau Federation
- American Sheep Industry Association
- National Association of Conservation Districts
- National Association of Counties
- National Association of State Departments of Agriculture
- National Cattlemen’s Beef Association
General Members
- Colorado Wool Growers Association
- Montana Farm Bureau Federation
- Nevada Association of Counties
- Wyoming State Grazing Board Central Committee
- Wyoming Stock Growers Association
Please help raise awareness of this issue and the dangers feral horses pose to our native wildlife and the environment.
Author
JJ Sutton, CPS, CMAS. Writes and contributes on numerous other topics but this cause is near and dear to his heart. JJ grew up on a remote SW Colorado multi-generational ranch which leads him to have a great respect for horses and the benefits they bring to a Ranch, a Farm, and for recreation. It’s painful to watch and see feral horses being caught in the middle of desperate mismanagement. Read more from JJ at ARHunters .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXl9NyrORIM&feature=youtu.be
Facts in video of 2011 report.
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Horse meat tastes good. Ask the Europeans. In the late 60’s, there used to be a specialty butcher shop at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. How about permit hunts to keep the feral horse/burro numbers down to a level where they can co-exist with the other critters and get some meat on their bones for the dinner table. If you draw a permit you could also capture and raise said critter for a domestic pet.
It costs nothing? Staff,Salaries, Benefits, Working Groups, Symposiums, Signage, Pickup trucks, Gas, Opportunity costs?
That’s the beauty of pixie dust and a gullible mind- it’s just government money or it doesn’t cost anything!
They are not “wild animals”. FERAL, Nonnatvive species.
Pony lovers should adopt a Bison.
Yes, Sir; pixie dust and gullibility. To whit: no tax dollars are spent on wild horses and burros while they remain on the ranges. They begin to cost the moment someone decides to ‘manage’ them. Roundups, feed, vet care – such as it is – and feed lot maintenance are where the money goes. There are no dedicated teams or rangers monitoring these animals. That falls to the volunteers who follow them. Most ‘field’ work regarding wild horses and burros is conducted last minute, when the paperwork for removals has to be written. But, any way… First step is always… Read more »
The pictures depicted here represent the worst of what the drought brought down on these animals – and likely every other form of wildlife in these same areas, so gettin’ your chonies twisted up over them doesn’t necessarily illustrate compassion. Stating irrevocably that Public Land Ranchers don’t overgraze demonstrates a belief in something that simply isn’t true; there are plenty of us horsey huggin’ advocates who spend time on the same ranges wild horses and burros do, and we’ve seen blatant trespass and the results of overgrazing. In most areas occupied by horses, burros, deer and elk, pronghorn and Big… Read more »
Loads of idiots posting moronic spew here;
Wild horses DO destroy the habitat it is well know among INTELLIGENT people.
Cattle ranchers DO NOT over graze properties, to do so would be a load of asinine stupidity and their cattle would suffer. If you bleeding hearts love the wild horse and burros, then round them up and care for them at YOUR expense.
Question: Since when does 175 minus 80 = 635?
Answer: When BLM does the math.
BLM’s Estimated Pre-Gather Population 175
BLM states Number of Animals Removed 80
BLM’s Estimated Post Gather Population 635
BLM’s methods are to lie until they get what they want, by which point it will be too late for our wild horses and burros and what once were OUR public lands.
Completed FY 10 Gathers (per BLM) proving BLM lies:
Black Mt Wild Burro Herd Management Area Arizona
https://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/wo/Planning_and_Renewable_Resources/wild_horses_and_burros/statistics_and_maps/transparency_page.Par.95462.File.dat/Completed%20FY%2010%20Gathers.pdf
Ahh, the enlightened speaks and says ,”To get the TRUTH buy my book.”
Too complicated for our little brains to figure out. Leave it to the self proclaimed experts.
If the pony lovers can identify the wild horse from the domestic in a photograph, more power to them.
Why can hogs be feral but horses can’t?
Poisoned Eggs?
Poisoning Ravens to Help Sage Grouse?
By BRIAN SMITH [email protected]
TWIN FALLS, Idaho
Wildlife officials will spend as much as $100,000 over two years to poison ravens in three areas of Idaho, but officials don’t know whether that kill will permanently boost sage grouse populations as intended.
Spending $100,000 on the poisoning program will be like “flushing money down the toilet,” said Alison Holloran, regional science director for Audubon Rockies
This is a very distorted article about America’s last wild horses that comes from a prejudiced view of them. This view does not honor their true nature, but “sets them up” for discrediting and so for elimination. It is obvious that the vested interest of the writer of this has blinded him to the truth about America’s wonderful wild horses. To get the fuller story I suggest you read my book, The Wild Horse Conspiracy. it is on Amazon. It explains why we should consider them as one of the most deeply native species in North America and how, as… Read more »
From Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) BLM WEIGHS WILD HORSE IMPACT MUCH MORE HEAVILY THAN CATTLE Agency Sage Grouse Review Puts Thumb on Scale to Magnify Wild Horse and Burro Effects Washington, DC — The method used by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to assess range conditions is seriously skewed toward minimizing impacts from domestic livestock and magnifying those from wild horses and burros, according to an appraisal by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, the BLM’s approach to range management targets scattered wild horses and burros while ignoring far more numerous cattle. The agency’s… Read more »
Good “stewards of the Earth”? Article posted on STRAIGHT FROM THE HORSE’S HEART/Jan 7, 2016 Wild horses & burros being removed for Richfield Tar Sands plan “The document goes so far as to say, ‘the management of wild horse and burro herds is not compatible within those portions of commercial tar sands lease areas.’” TABLE 3.1.3-1 Wild Horse Herd Management Areas within the Oil Shale and Tar Sands Study Area (page 3-167) Colorado Piceance-East Douglas Utah Canyonlands Muddy Creek Range Creek Sinbad Wyoming Little Colorado White Mountain Salt Wells Adobe Town [PLUS Herd Areas which are not discussed in this… Read more »
1. Overgrazing, Under-Billing: It is the millions of non-native livestock that are degrading the public lands. BLM lets ranchers self-report whether they run cattle or not, and then bills them accordingly. If permittees don’t report use, BLM doesn’t bill them. BLM calls it “voluntary non-use.” According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the direct and indirect costs of the Federal Grazing Program may result in the loss of as much as $1,000,000,000 — that’s one billion (1,000 million!) dollars — every year. 2. Rogue Permittees: Conditions are egregious, particularly in Nevada, where permittees defy BLM’s authority to rest allotments from grazing.… Read more »
The lies and propaganda of these horse lovers is crazy…. funny at minimum; dangerous at best. Fabricated rebuttals that lack a single thread of fact but they are loud enough and repeat it enough so that people who don’t know anything about the issue believe it (politicians included). If that doesn’t work they resort to threats. Making threats is how they influence the government agencies, employees and politicians too to disregard and not enforce the laws, statues, and management directives. The case of a loud, misinformed, and wrong sided opposition bullying their way to attention… we have seen this a… Read more »
The REAL threat to hunters isn’t from Wild Horses or Burros. THE DAILY CALLER/APRIL 2015 Perhaps the biggest threat to the future of our sport is that we are losing access to places to hunt and fish. As more and more private lands are subdivided, fragmented or placed off-limits, sportsmen are hanging up their shotguns and leaving their deer stands and fishing rods in the garage rather than heading into the field. Nationwide, the loss of access is the number one reason cited for why Americans discard their hunting and fishing roots. For many of us who love the outdoors,… Read more »
From the Economist (April 2016) The Big Lie of “overpopulation” is the pretext for BLM’s war against the wild horses. It’s BLM’s version of the “Shock Doctrine,” wherein BLM concocted a phony crisis to push through policies antithetical to the Wild Horse Act against the will of The People. In fact, horses are a slow-growth species when it comes to reproduction. The gestation-period lasts over 11 months, and a mare produces just 1 foal. While an independent study of BLM’s records did confirm a nearly 20% birth rate, that study also found that 50% of foals perish before their first… Read more »
Here let me explain in Illinois we CLOSED DOWN horseprocessing plants and we see propaganda when it occurs for what it is.. In Illinois We protect hunters rights but should you decide that Wild horses are contributing to hunting issues then we can realize hunting restrictions of proportions NEVER seen before. The horse is neither invasive nor an issue to hunters but we recently found in a survey that most of USA would Actually stop hunting on Private lands to protect horses. So its interesting that your turning against horses again. There are No Feral horses. Your information is straight… Read more »
Thanks for the load of moronic idiocy and spew cynthia.
You should recognize propaganda for what it is, a lot of it originates with activists such as you. Since when does 113,000 equal less than 70,000? Did you even read the article? You claim hunters don’t like horses. Hunters don’t like to see horses or any animals suffer from starvation and mismanagement/overused ranges. Several years ago Florida let their deer population get way overpopulated by not allowing hunting, the numbers got out of hand, but the animals were starving and diseased and the state was forced to cull them at taxpayer expense. In reality, hunting should be part of the… Read more »
1. Alot of these horses are Feral from the Govt…. ie the Calvery during both the Civil War and Indian Conflicts. So a case against them would be difficult. Secondly, ALOT of animals DO get turned out because people can no longer care for them but the bulk are new from the large birth rates of the existing animals… Feral meaning they are NOT wildlife but a domestic animal gone to an uncared for state. Before the law in the 70s came into affect many ranchers helped maintain the health and welfare of the herds cause they would catch and… Read more »
The Fact is they are Not Feral. If they were feral a massive investigation would be launched to Arrest every person who dumped, abandoned and starved horses to be left as feral. Theres no statute of limitations for Animal Cruelty charges so we can go arrest as far back as needed. The charges can pile up. The second thing about those pictures you notice they ZOOM in on a couple of horses so lets go Arrest the people who owned them. Then those horses rhat are pictured should have gathered and fed instead of Healthy Hprse gathered and fed. Lets… Read more »
Dear Cynthia – Arrest the photographer? Arrest the person who released them They are not feral? Please explain the definition of feral? Anything I have seen indicates that horses were introduced to North America via Spanish explorers. Hence, they were an introduced species and not native. If you release a mare on BLM land, and she has a foal – she is considered “wild” under the act and the USFWS USFWS considers any of her offspring or descendants to be a “wild horse.” This is ridiculous. If you have signed an agreement to “hold/care for” 100 “wild horses on your… Read more »