Wyoming wild horses

[HONEYBADGER]

Invasive species. Game and Fish organizations will go to the ends of the earth to eradicate other species, write you tickets for not taking steps to prevent them etc, but wild horses are the sacred cow. Such is the state of emotional game management

 

[BrentD]

Honeybadger, State G&F are completely hamstrung by the Horse and Wild Burro act of 1971. It is a federal, not state problem. Don't blame your state guys, or even your federal F&W people. It is an act of Congress that protect those animals. Management people at any level have no say in it.

https://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/92-195.htm

 

[haiku_rodney]

Thanks BrentD for the info. I never knew that.

 

[antlerradar]

Horses absolutely affect antelope deer and elk, green mountian is full of horses. For what it's worth I heard on the radio today that a group submitted the filing to request wild horses in mt to be put on the endangered species list.

They haven't been to the Cheyenne Reservation lately.

 

[rmyoung1]

Indeed. But then there are Pheasants, brown trout, and many others that I love the heck out of.

I don't know how we will ever solve the horse problem. At a minimum, it will take an act of Congress, however, and they are far to preoccupied at the moment and well into the foreseeable future.

Doesn’t there have to be a way to deal with this? I mean, yeah, pheasants aren’t native but they don’t ruin ecosystems. They’re not noxious. Can’t we get some solutions to this somehow? It just doesn’t seem like this should be so hard. The federal govt pays who knows how much to remove noxious, non-native lake trout from Yellowstone Lake every year. Millions are paid to spray knapweed. It just seems like we should be able to differentiate between harmful non-natives and benign non-natives and respond accordingly. We do it all the time. It’s crazy that this horse thing is even a problem. I realize horses create emotional attachment and lake trout and knapweed don’t but it’s just so insane (and frustrating and hypocritical and...)

 

[MThuntr]

I mean, yeah, pheasants aren’t native but they don’t ruin ecosystems.

you should Google nest/egg dumping of native grouse

 

[1_pointer]

I wonder what proportion of the horse populations in Wyoming are born "in situ" vs. being supported by people dumping horses they no longer could afford or wanted. Around here, beginning in 2008, horse stable and riding operations where going belly up at an alarming rate. Horse owners were having to lock their paddock gates to keep horses out, not to keep them in. One could wake up with three extra horses that weren't there the night before.

I suspect that many horses were being dumped into already existing horse populations in places like Wyoming, but whether is a significant factor in horse population demographics or not, I don't know. Does anyone know of any population studies on these herds?

Have no idea about Wyoming, but I am somewhat familiar with a few horse herd areas in No. Utah. The problem of dumping horses has/was not much of a problem in those areas. That said, the one's I am aware of are over objective with not much hope for gathers, which is the only real administrative remedy for reducing the population.

 

[BrentD]

Have no idea about Wyoming, but I am somewhat familiar with a few horse herd areas in No. Utah. The problem of dumping horses has/was not much of a problem in those areas. That said, the one's I am aware of are over objective with not much hope for gathers, which is the only real administrative remedy for reducing the population.

I did just a little surfing of the literature and found a bunch of papers, albeit a bit old from the 80s and 90s, that suggest that dumping is not the issue I thought it might be - which also means the problem is more difficult. Most studies of horse population dynamics are reporting per capita rates of growth in the 1.15 to 1.25 range, which is truly huge. Annual survival rates for adults run well over 90% and efforts at cropping the populations, for some reason, focus mostly on males which doesn't help much either.

Overall, horse populations are very self sustaining, and dumping, seems to be pretty irrelevant to the problem.

 

[BrentD]

you should Google nest/egg dumping of native grouse

And browns that run native brook trout out of their habitats, and so on. I'm not saying that I want either of those two species to be eliminated, but the words "exotic" or "nonnative" or "invasive" are always viewed as pejoratives, even though we do tend to enjoy some of them immensely.

Personally, I'm as worried for the pheasant populations in Iowa as I am any wild game species I can think of. I do not think their future is bright at all and by the time we realize we are losing them, it will be far too late. It may be already.

 

[1_pointer]

I did just a little surfing of the literature and found a bunch of papers, albeit a bit old from the 80s and 90s, that suggest that dumping is not the issue I thought it might be - which also means the problem is more difficult. Most studies of horse population dynamics are reporting per capita rates of growth in the 1.15 to 1.25 range, which is truly huge. Annual survival rates for adults run well over 90% and efforts at cropping the populations, for some reason, focus mostly on males which doesn't help much either.

Overall, horse populations are very self sustaining, and dumping, seems to be pretty irrelevant to the problem.

They reproduce fast, live long, and often. One herd in No Utah was someone kept in check by mountain lion predation. It was an exception. Water running out seems to be the biggest issue the horse herds I was around faced. In bad years, water was hauled to them...

 

[BrentD]

What I saw in the papers I was reading was that there were a few winters that were severe enough to really increase mortality (into the neighborhood of 50%), but those yeas were followed by exceptional reproduction and recruitment that quickly made up for losses.

Water may be important but with cattle grazing operations, water is always available for drinking. Drought and poor vegetative growth may combine with a severe winter to inflict greater mortality, but they seem to keep on ticking. I didn't realize they were so resilient.

One of the reasons this surprises me is that, while horses of many species evolved here in North America millions of years ago, they also went extinct. The bulk of those extinctions were because their teeth did not match well with the later evolution of the dominant vegetation in grassland environments. That they should suddenly be so successful now is a bit unexpected - at least to me.

 

[Washington Hunter]

Need Donald Trump Junior to get on board with solving the FERAL horse problem, since he's a hunter, and then talk his dad into getting it done. It's ridiculous that these horses take precedence over native wildlife. I saw hundreds of horses in southeast Oregon when we drove through there last year. Found an article that says there are over 4,000 "wild" horses in Oregon. I'm sure Wyoming has way more than that, and of course Nevada.

New numbers from the Bureau of Land Management show Oregon’s wild horse and burro populations are on the rise.

There are an estimated 4,351 wild horses and burros on Oregon’s rangelands. That’s up more than 13 percent from last year’s population. And it’s far more than the number of horses the BLM says the rangelands can handle in balance with other public land uses.

http://www.capitalpress.com/Oregon/20170516/wild-horse-populations-in-oregon-on-the-rise

 

[Irrelevant]

Is a 22.250 enough gun?

barnes ttsx = yes

gameking = no

 

[1_pointer]

What I saw in the papers I was reading was that there were a few winters that were severe enough to really increase mortality (into the neighborhood of 50%), but those yeas were followed by exceptional reproduction and recruitment that quickly made up for losses.

Water may be important but with cattle grazing operations, water is always available for drinking. Drought and poor vegetative growth may combine with a severe winter to inflict greater mortality, but they seem to keep on ticking. I didn't realize they were so resilient.

One of the reasons this surprises me is that, while horses of many species evolved here in North America millions of years ago, they also went extinct. The bulk of those extinctions were because their teeth did not match well with the later evolution of the dominant vegetation in grassland environments. That they should suddenly be so successful now is a bit unexpected - at least to me.

Where I worked, winter wasn't a problem for them. At all. Water was not always available there though. Most of what was available was developed water which was controlled by the water rights holder, who was not the BLM. The ones I saw in WY probably had more to worry about in winter...

 

[Keeptrying]

I did just a little surfing of the literature and found a bunch of papers, albeit a bit old from the 80s and 90s, that suggest that dumping is not the issue I thought it might be - which also means the problem is more difficult. Most studies of horse population dynamics are reporting per capita rates of growth in the 1.15 to 1.25 range, which is truly huge. Annual survival rates for adults run well over 90% and efforts at cropping the populations, for some reason, focus mostly on males which doesn't help much either.

Overall, horse populations are very self sustaining, and dumping, seems to be pretty irrelevant to the problem.

You should be aware that when those older studies were done there were still horse slaughter facilities operating in the United States. That hasn't been the case for a long time, and the dumping of horses is a common practice, especially when the economy takes a down turn.

 

[jeremys4]

The last horse numbers I saw for Nevada was almost 38000 Utah was second with around 4500. I've counted around 90 on my inlaws property at one time.

 

[Elkdog]

You almost can't get out of the truck without stepping in a pile of horse manure in the Monitors. It's amazing how many horses are out there. They do make really good hiking trails though.

 

[Horse]

https://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/92-195.htm

Typical Washington B.S. The" Horses symoblize the history of the west". Just like the excuses for the wolves. They don't have to deal with the effects of them and only picture cute little horseys and furry puppies. Reading through the Act, it allows the "Secretary" to deal with over population or old/lame. Guessing no state people or ranchers are complaining to him of the over population and the environmental effects. Gotta be a few parks in D.C that need some pups and horses to pet. Load'm up.

 

[BrentD]

Horses, wild or otherwise are nothing like wolves. Nothing at all.

 

[Keeptrying]

Horses, wild or otherwise are nothing like wolves. Nothing at all.

What do you base that on? Horses are extremely destructive to the landscape and aggressive towards native wildlife. The mindset of those who wish to allow both species to expand unhindered is exactly the same. In fact, they are probably the same people.