Last Updated on February 8, 2023 by Teri Rehkopf
Mitigation Possible with Wild Horses
YREKA, CA, US, January 13, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ — Over the past 60 days of winter (2022 2023) western states of California and Oregon have seen well above normal precipitation, primarily in California, according to a report by Reuters. Some rain and snowfall records are being broken with even more precipitation on its way according to forecasters.
While the drought-stricken western states welcome the gift of water, this record precipitation will generate massive amounts of grass and brush wildfire fuels across the western landscape.
It’s important to note that grass and brush are known by CALFIRE’s handbook as ‘1 hour class fuels’ and are the key fuels in more than 60% of all catastrophic wildfires, according to a general survey of wildfire forensics published at the government wildfire reporting website InciWeb.
Precedent causation of abnormally high grass and brush fuel loading across the landscape is the result of a serious decline in the populations of wild horses and deer in California and Oregon.
Given that grass and brush fuels are annually renewing, expensive and risky prescribed fire (a.k.a. ‘controlled burning’, ‘cultural fire’, ‘eco cultural fire’) would need to be applied frequently to the many millions of acres of landscape affected to manage these annual grass and brush fuels.
Of course, this tail chasing exercise ignores the precedent causation of prodigious grass and brush fuels, which is the collapsed herbivory in California.
In other words, California’s deer population has been decimated by mismanagement with an estimated decline of 2.5 million deer over the last 40 years.
In 2010, a report by SFGate stated that: “The California deer population has plummeted over the past two decades by 46 percent.”
According to the researched website ‘Deer Friendly’:
“The state’s deer population has fallen from the peak of about 2 million around 1960 to around 460,000 in 2021…. The estimate is part of an effort to build a statistical model to help understand the reasons for the decline of the California population. This article provides evidence that reduced timber harvests and forest management, along with skewed deer demographics in California, have contributed to the long-term decline of the deer population. Although neighboring states have experienced somewhat similar declines, data indicate that no state in the West or in the rest of the United States has seen their deer population fall as much as California in the modern era.”
Other meta-research by William E. Simpson II suggests that the reporting on the collapse of the deer populations in California and Oregon is suffering from latency in regard to calculating attributable losses of cervids (deer) due to catastrophic wildfires. And given that some estimates show between 20-80 animals (wildlife) are killed for each acre of wilderness burned by wildfire, the drop in the California deer population may be as much as 2.5 million. Data on Oregon’s deer populations suggest that the population of deer (mule deer and black tail deer) in Oregon is down about 500,000 deer over the past two decades.
Each deer that’s now missing from the forest had been consuming about 1.2 tons of grass and brush per year.
This means that the missing deer in California alone were cost effectively and safely controlling/managing 2.4 million tons of annually occurring grass and brush on the low end (based on 2 million deer missing), and 3 million tons of wildfire fuels on the high end (based on 2.5 million deer missing).
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Since the passing of the 1971 Act to protect free roaming American wild horses (and burros), these sentient beings have been increasingly mismanaged to the point where now they are simply being eradicated.
And it’s not just the Bureau of Land Management (‘BLM’) who’s doing the eradication. American Wild Horse Campaign (and other so called wild horse advocacy Orgs and people) have and continue to engage in the use of a known genetic poison commonly referred to as ‘PZP’.
Science, not opinion, proves that using any form of Selective Breeding (using PZP), couched as ‘fertility control’ & ‘contraception’, leads to genetic decline among any animals where this practice is employed.
Why do people and some nonprofits engage in the use of chemical sterilization via PZP?
The reasons are twofold:
First, some people (even heads of Big Orgs) have a poor understanding of science and genetics; most are NOT trained in science as our team is.
Second, there’s a lot of money to be made sterilizing wild horses using chemicals like PZP.
The BLM (DOI) is funding the use of PZP and GonaCon on American wild horses. Think about that!
So that raises the question: are we supposed to suddenly believe, after 50 years of mismanagement and extermination of wild horses, that the BLM has suddenly changed its eradication strategy?
There is NO excuse whatsoever for using chemicals (PZP) to sterilize wild horses.
Using these chemicals (PZP) also have serious adverse effects on the social structure of wild horse families.
Learn why the impacts of PZP on family social dynamics have terrible genetic repercussions: https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/609358968/new research reveals natural selection has many facets affecting genetics foal survival of wild horses.
Dr. Cassandra Nunez is a leading researcher into the use of PZP; here are a few of her published studies:
There is really only one genuine solution for Wild horses that are deemed to be in areas of conflict, regardless of the reason for the conflict (limited space, conflicts with commercial enterprises, people killing them, rounding them up, etc.).
That solution is to humanely relocate/rewild them into the critical wilderness areas where there are no commercial enterprises or livestock (i.e., prohibited by law), and where there is abundant water and forage.
Largely located in the Pacific Northwest, we have about 115 million acres of designated critical wilderness, where relocated wild horses would greatly benefit the ecosystems of these special wilderness areas as they live their lives wild and free as nature intended.
Look at the math related to distribution and population density of wild horses relocated into designated critical wilderness.
Just using 20 million acres of the 115 million acres of critical wilderness, we could rewild and relocate 100,000 horses at the rate of one (1) horse per 200 acres of land.
That density of horses will not interfere with the forage needs of existing herbivores, nor any growth of cervid populations.
In these same wilderness areas, the existing populations of apex predators (wolves, bears, mountain lions, coyotes, and bobcats) will engage in the essential evolutionary process of natural selection.
Natural selection is nature’s way of accomplishing two important functions for wildlife, including wild horses:
1. Regulating populations and along with other natural factors, prevents over population;
2. Weeding out weak, sick, unfit, and elderly horses, which preserves genetic vigor of wild horses.
Unlike any other nonprofit, Wild Horse Fire Brigade has a research team living among and studying free roaming wild horses full time in a natural wilderness area
The WHFB research station is called ‘Wild Horse Ranch’ and was established in the Soda Mountain wilderness area in 2014.
It’s not easy living full time in the wilderness; there are not amenities nearby, and there is no city or county water, sewer, or electricity. If you are injured, the nearest medical care is an hour away via a very bumpy road. Serious injuries that are normally addressed in time to save a life in cities or urban areas are often fatal in the wilderness.
All materials for the ongoing management of infrastructure have to be trucked into difficult terrain.
The daily chores of living in the wilderness involve hard physical work, every day, just to start.
The information (a.k.a. ‘data’) that is gathered via living among free roaming naturally living wild horses cannot be duplicated via any other method. Photo field trips aren’t even close.
As embedded observers, the research team at Wild Horse Ranch is making daily observations at very close range (i.e., able to smell the horses, which also reveals important information).
To date, our research team has logged over 15,000 hours of close observational study, more than 75,000 photos and hours of videos documenting wild horse ecology and ethology.
The value of our research method:
b. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new paradigm observational study native species wild horses simpson
Wild Horse Fire Brigade is an accredited California based 501 c 3 nonprofit.
Our all-volunteer Org needs meaningful financial support to continue our current and envisioned programs, which include:
1. Continued close observational studies and implementing an on-site wild horse ethology program for qualified college students
2. GIS mapping of our herd’s movement over their home range and grazing
3. Educational outreach programs to the public and legislators
4. Infrastructure support for our remotely located research team (ongoing hard costs for research, not salaries
5. Low impact management of our herd and the rescue/rewilding of wild horses into our herd.
NOTE: During the last 5 months of 2022, Wild Horse Fire Brigade has rewilded 17 mustangs! And we have just a TINY annual budget.
Considering the $2 million in donations sitting in American Wild Horse Campaign’s bank account (according to their IRS 990 form) as they lobby politicians to use even MORE chemicals to sterilize wild horses, thus aiding in the BLM strategy to exterminate wild horses, does it make any sense to give them another dime?
Learn more here:
PLEASE CONSIDER making a donation to our genuine efforts to naturally, humanely, and sustainably conserve the few remaining genetically intact American wild horses!
Here is a link to our secure PayPal account: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=E5WT67QR5H6X8.
Please visit www.wildhorsefirebrigade.org for more information.