By Debbie Coffey, V.P. & Dir. Wild Horse Affairs, Wild Horse Freedom Federation Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved.
photo: BLM Nevada
On 1/13/15, we posted an article (see bottom of this article) about wild horses being rounded up on the Little Fish Lake HMA. However, in the latest BLM press release, the BLM claims many of the wild horses they rounded up were only a 2-3 on the Henneke body condition scale. This is thin to very thin.
Maybe if the BLM hadn’t allowed the Wagon Johnnie Allotment permittee to OVERGRAZE with more than the allowed amount of cattle for 6 months out of the year, there would’ve been enough forage for the wild horses and the wild horses wouldn’t have been so thin.
A 2014 Forest Service report claimed there were 528 cattle on the Wagon Johnnie Allotment (the permittee, Colvin & Son LLC, was only permitted to have 201 cattle, so even if they were cow-calf pairs, that would only add up to 402 cattle).
The Wagon Johnnie Allotment does not have any AUMs suspended. Forage is apparently still “available” for livestock grazing. The BLM 10 year grazing permit renewal policy (which ignores drought conditions for welfare ranchers) allows this permittee to keep grazing cattle until 02/28/2021. While wild horses are PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM THE FISH CREEK HMA. This means while wild horses are removed forever, welfare ranchers continue using public lands unabated, even during droughts.
From the BLM’s Rangeland Administration System:
|
NEVADA
|
|
LLNVB02000
|
|
TONOPAH FO
|
|
00079
|
|
WAGON JOHNNIE
|
|
AMP IMPLEMENTED
|
|
05/01/1975
|
|
Authorization
Number
|
State
|
Effective Date
|
Expiration Date
|
Issue Date
|
Actual
Active
AUMS
|
Actual
Suspended
AUMS
|
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
2706100
|
NV
|
TONOPAH FO
|
03/01/2011
|
02/28/2021
|
06/17/2011
|
1219
|
0
|
|
Authorization Information
|
|
Allotment
Number
|
Allotment Name
|
Authorization
Number
|
Livestock
Number
|
Livestock
Kind
|
Period
Begin
|
Period
End
|
Public
Land %
|
Type Use
|
AUMs
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
00079
|
WAGON JOHNNIE
|
2706100
|
201
|
CATTLE
|
05/16
|
11/15
|
100
|
ACTIVE
|
1216
|
_____________________________________________________________________________
BLM News Release No. 2015-013 Release Date: 02/11/15
BLM Concludes Little Fish Lake Wild Horse Gather
TONOPAH, Nev. – The Bureau of Land Management’s Tonopah Field Office concluded the Little Fish Lake wild horse gather on February 10, successfully removing 140 excess wild horses from the Little Fish Lake Herd Management Area and releasing seven horses back into the HMA.
BLM staff utilized the Henneke body condition scale to classify gathered wild horses. On a scale from one to nine the Little Fish Lake horses were generally a body condition score of 2 (very thin) to 3 (thin), with a few wild horses observed to be higher or lower. The studs that were released back into the HMA were a body condition of 4 or better.
“The original plan was to gather and ship 100 horses and release any gathered above that number back into the HMA after treating the mares with fertility control,” said Deborah Brown, the Incident Commander for the gather. “After observing the condition of the horses in the gather corral we determined that they were not healthy enough to be released and the amount of forage available in the HMA would have led to further decline in their condition.”
The removed excess wild horses were sent to the BLM’s Wild Horse and Burro Corrals in Ridgecrest, California where they will be prepared for the BLM’s adoption program. Any un-adopted wild horses will be placed in long-term pastures where they will be humanely cared for and retain their “wild” status and protection under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. The BLM does not sell or send any wild horses to slaughter.
The gather began on February 8 and concluded on February 10. An Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service veterinarian was on site daily to evaluate animal conditions and provide recommendations to the on-site BLM wild horse and burro specialist for care and treatment.
BLM’s Little Fish Lake gather website can be accessed at http://on.doi.gov/1wJJqkY. Photos from the gather can be found at http://bit.ly/1KEnXkT.
For more information, contact Chris Rose, BLM public affairs specialist, at (775) 861-6480 or by email at crose@blm.gov.
_________________________________________________________________________
To read our entire 1/13/15 article on Straight from the Horse’s Heart, click on the headline:
The BLM plans to permanently remove 100 wild horses from Nevada’s Little Fish Lake Herd Management Area, stating that the wild horses are “threatened by lack of forage from within the HMA.” However, the BLM will continue to allow the Wagon Johnnie Grazing Allotment permittee to graze 201 cattle for 6 months of each year on 100% public lands. (per BLM Rangeland Administration System information). We know the number of cattle could be doubled since the BLM counts a cow-calf pair as only 1.
But, what’s really interesting is that a 2014 Forest Service report claimed there were 528 cattle on the Wagon Johnnie Allotment. Even though the Forest Service noted “Permittees should expect that, if drought impacts to plant production occur, they may be required to exit the allotment earlier than normal this grazing season,” it seems that there have never been any suspended AUMs for the Wagon Johnnie Allotment permittee, Colvin & Son, LLC.
So, the BLM continues to let 528 cattle graze while they remove wild horses to a non-viable herd number of 89 (with 50 of those remaining 89 remaining horses given the experimental fertility control drug, PZP).
The managing member of Colvin & Son LLC is the 17 Bar Cattle Co., LLC, in Dammeron Valley, Utah. The 17 Bar Cattle Company seems to share the same telephone number as Desert Electric, Inc.
Another interesting thing the 2014 Forest Service report stated about another grazing allotment: “Colvin & Son, LLC was allowed double their permitted numbers in Little Fish Lake C&H allotment as per the District Ranger for the 2014 grazing season with the agreement to rest the allotment for the 2015 grazing season. Utilization studies will be performed by Austin/Tonopah District personnel to determine if the allotment can sustain a permanent increase.”
So, during a “drought” in Nevada, which is supposed to last years, another government agency, the USDA’s Forest Service, is considering a PERMANENT INCREASE in cattle grazing. Go figure. – Debbie
Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
The BLM is a corrupt and useless bureaucracy. The Dept. of Interior seem unable or unwilling to curb their excesses. We need another “Wild Horse Annie” Now!
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“Any un-adopted wild horses will be placed in long-term pastures where they will be humanely cared for and retain their “wild” status and protection under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. The BLM does not sell or send any wild horses to slaughter.”…..What a load of complete b.s.. And the majority of the public is buying this propaganda.
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This is no surprise to me. I was waiting for them do pull some shit like this.
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Sounds like the BLM, just like a lot of other people, groups, organizations agencies, etc, don’t know how to use the Henneke weight assessment scale for horses correctly.
And in a statement he issued before he passed away in 2012, Dr. Don Henneke, the inventor of the weight assessment scale for horses, was very upset about the on-going mis-use of his scale by different sectors in the horse world who use it improperly over and over again to tip things in their favor.
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As made clear by the Wild Horse and Burro Act’s implementing regulations, the BLM “may close appropriate areas of the public lands to grazing use by all or a particular kind of livestock . . . if necessary to provide habitat for wild horses or burros, to implement herd management actions, or to protect wild horses or burros from disease, harassment or injury.” 43 C.F.R. § 4710.5(a).
Wild horses and burros are legally DESIGNATED on the Herd Management Area (HMA) and livestock are only PERMITTED. The Wild Horse and Burro lands and resources are set aside for, and assigned and authorized for, the use of wild horses and burros whereas the livestock is only allowed and tolerated and let to use the public range resources. While commercial livestock grazing is permitted on public lands, it is not a requirement under the agency’s multiple use mandate as outlined in the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). Public land grazing clearly is a privilege not a right, while the BLM is mandated by law to protect wild horses and burros.
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140 “excess” wild horses? Excuse me? BLM, if you want to talk about EXCESS animals, let’s shift our focus towards the 327 EXCESS cattle instead. The pot calling the kettle black much?
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The desertification and extermination of our wildlife continues in the West. Not only are we fighting for the wild horses and burros, but all our wildlife that the government killing machine (Wildlife Services) and industry (livestock, extraction, politicians and hunters) want gone. Or in the case of hunters, left so they can kill it. Look what is happening to our bison in Yellowstone and our wolves in Idaho and Montana. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and Wyoming are trying to put a rider in a spending bill to delist the wolves of these states. A spending bill!!! WTH!!! The only way these crooked politicians can get their way, because they know the majority of people do not agree. That is what happened to the wolves in Idaho and Montana and their numbers have decreased drastically. No way should the states manage the wild horses and burros. They would be gone in a heart beat. It is frightening to think what we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. What they will have to deal with because of greed and money.
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The BLM train just keeps steamrolling…are they ever going to do their job & PROTECT Wild Horses!!
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From AMERICAN HERDS (excerpt)
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2009
Allegations, Hearsay and What the F*%k?
http://americanherds.blogspot.com/2009/01/allegations-hearsay-and-what-fk.html
“For those of you who may be feeling bad about Ben Colvin being squeezed out of his own livestock operations on the Ralston allotment to accommodate Gary’s cattle, no worries!”
It started the day after the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board’s Reno Meeting held on November 17, 2008 as an Anonymous phone call spilled through the airwaves into the ears of the International Fund 4 Horses. Prone to receiving a wide variety of odd, unverifiable and even crank correspondence, there was little that could be done with the Anonymous “tip” besides being highly disturbed.
The hastily scribbled notes from the Anonymous caller read:
*WATCH ALL HOLDING FACILITIES* as early as next weekend, but especially around Thanksgiving. The BLM have been fudging the numbers on what horses are where and how many.
The Plan: 200-300 geldings are being moved about 40 at a time to Mexico for slaughter; 400-500 mares moved, then killed and buried at various facilities. Ditches for the bodies are being dug right now out in the desert, near an airbase so would be difficult for civilians to get out there. Will drive them to the spot, shoot them, then bulldoze them into the ditches and cover them up.
Fresh off the plane from the Advisory Board’s meeting and still feeling warm and fuzzy from BLMs feel-good assurances that our captured wild herds would be safe a while longer, the Anonymous Tip hit me like a ton of bricks with its wake up call! Trust BLM?
One month later on December 19th, 2008 between 10 p.m. and 8:30 a.m., 200 geldings and 100 mares plus their foals disappeared from BLMs Palomino Valley Holding Facilities (PVC).
On December 30, 2008, 200 more mares disappeared from PVC and when someone finally answered the phone a few days later, they explained the horses were taken to Fallen, NV, where a feedlot and slaughter auction yard doubles as a BLM “overflow” facility. According to Tim, PVC’s current manager, once wild horses are shipped there, they are no longer available for adoption or for public inspection as it is a private facility.
Meet Gary Snow Livestock and Grain, Inc., who’s been contracting with BLM for years to hold wild horses at the cost of $3.21 per day(1), billed in two-week cycles and who picked up almost $2.4 million dollars for his wild horse and burro “control services” in Fiscal Year 2007 and almost another $1.5 million for just the first two quarters of Fiscal Year 2008. All in all, Gary’s place has netted almost $13 million dollars from BLM since the year 2000. (
Apparently in 2001, a stink was being raised about how Gary was circumventing legal grazing permits by running cattle through “unofficial” partnerships with known Sage Brush Rebel Ranchers Wayne Hage and Ben Colvin as their special applications to BLM for Temporary Non-Renewable Grazing Permits were then sold to Gary.
However, these days Gary doesn’t need to sneak cattle into other permittees allotments anymore as BLM has rewarded him this year with authorizations to run livestock on the Arambell, Ruby Hill and Ralston allotments, which just so happen to coincide with the Fish Creek and Saulsbury Herd Management Areas.
For those of you who may be feeling bad about Ben Colvin being squeezed out of his own livestock operations on the Ralston allotment to accommodate Gary’s cattle, no worries! In October, BLM proposed giving Colvin & Son a Temporary Non-Renewable Grazing permit for 1,400 head of cattle too! Click Here to view the whole proposal and here’s the map of the area.
As BLM continues to save our wild horses from starving to death on a drought stricken and decimated range, it’s good to know “temporary forage” is still available for both Gary’s and Colvin’s cattle to the tune of 2,000 head at the bargain basement rate of $1.35 per month.
As for the Anonymous Tip, it will just have to be filed in that very thick folder of allegations within the Wild Horse and Burro Program that were never substantiated.
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