When livestock are absent, the water is turned off …
Private welfare cattle destroying water trough on public land
This Range Management Plan (RMP) will make decisions on at least 1,235,200 wild horse and burro legal acres in western Nevada and includes intensive “management” on 21 HMA/HAs, including:
- Augusta Mountains HA/HMA
- Clan Alpine HA/HMA
- Desatoya Mountains HA/HMA
- Dogskin Mountains HA/HMA
- Flanigan HA/HMA HA/HMA
- Garfield Flat HA/HMA
- Granite Peak HA/HMA
- Fort Sage HA/HMA
- Horse Mountain HA/HMA
- Horse Springs HA
- Lahontan HA/HMA
- Marietta HA/HMA
- Montgomery Pass HA/HMA
- New Pass HA/HMA
- North Stillwater HA/HMA
- Pilot Mountain HA/HMA
- Pine Nut HA/HMA
- South Stillwater HA/HMA
- Tule Ridge and Mahogany Flat HA/HMA
- Pah Rah Mountain HA
- Wassuk HA/HMA
Public comment is due two weeks from today but just as a warning … this is a GIGANTIC amount of information to research and cover! I am just getting started, but it appears that there are 5 alternatives and NONE of them are good.
Alternative “A” so far seems to be the best but it is NOT good either. Alternative “A” supports continual capture/removals and extensive contraception and IMO we have to fight that because voting for the least of the evils is a lose-lose for everyone and especially our wild ones.
The other alternatives promote reduction in HMAs and reduction in WH&B land and non-reproducing herds and on and on – all real bad.
One thing I wanted to bring to our attention is this statement from the EIS:
“Granite Peak HMA is north of Reno, Nevada, and west of the Dogskin Mountains HMA. The HMA consists of rolling terrain. There is no permanent water within the HMA. When livestock are present and their associated water troughs are supplied with water, wild horses will use the water troughs. When livestock are absent, the water is turned off at the troughs and wild horses use water sources outside of the HMA.”
Private welfare sheep abound on public land
We saw this exact thing last summer on the Twin Peaks HMA and I think we all know this is a common practice and has caused numerous wild ones to either die from dehydration or be removed (how many “emergency drought” removals have there been over the years!). These are/were natural springs that have been captured via man-made devices for livestock … period. These are the same springs that would have originally allowed the natural populations to survive and thrive for hundreds if not thousands of years. This, in addition to removal of their legal herd area land and overgrazing by domestic livestock etc., has been and continues to be and will be the death of our wild ones in the wild. If this isn’t “managing for extinction” then I don’t know what is!
Please do the best that you can to review the Carson City RMP and just concentrate on the parts that you understand the best and have the most concern about – and then make your public comment by Monday, April 27th. We must speak for our wild horses and burros … and they will thank us by just being themselves and that is what we all want more than anything.
PS Since I have just barely scratched the surface of this EIS, I am hoping that others will share what they are seeing and researching and learning so that we can all do our best to save our wild horses and burros and their legal habitat. No time to waste!
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