Two of a band of wild horses graze in the Nephi Wash area outside Enterprise, Utah, April 10, 2014. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart A Reuters article over at Yahoo! News alerts us to further incompetence:
Just as the BLM in Nevada have been unable to manage the Desert Tortoise – busy killing them by the hundreds in one area while claiming to protect them from Cliven Bundy’s cattle in another – we find that in neighboring Utah, the BLM has completely failed to control the population of Western Wild Horses to the point where the horse population of Iron County, UT is almost SEVEN TIMES the BLM’s own guideline for a sustainable level. Furthermore, the BLM has been asking ranchers to reduce cattle herds by 50% to accommodate the drought (and the BLM’s inability to control the horse population).
Of course Enviro-Wackos are suing the BLM saying that any reduction of the horse population is too much, and decrying “greedy ranchers”, but the situation in Iron county offers a direct comparison between the ranchers’ careful stewardship of the land, and the BLM’s negligence.
From the article:
A tour of Iron County rangeland, not far from the Nevada border, illustrates the unchecked herds’ impact on the land, said Jeremy Hunt, a fourth generation Utah rancher whose cattle graze in the summer in a management area split through its middle by a barbed wire fence.
Cattle rancher Jeremy Hunt looks out over land, at a barbed wire fence in the Nephi Wash area outside Enterprise, Utah, April 10, 2014. REUTERS/Jim UrquhartOn the cattle side of the fence, the sagebrush and grass landscape is thick and green. The other, where a group of horses was seen on Thursday, is scattered with barren patches of dirt and sparse vegetation.
“This land is being literally destroyed because they are not following the laws that they set up to govern themselves,” said Hunt, who also works as a farmhand to make ends meet for his family of six.
“I want the land to be healthy and I want be a good steward of the land,” he added. “But you have to manage both sides of the fence.”
Or, listen to the County Commissioner, David Miller:
Pressure on rangeland from the horses may worsen this summer due to a drought that could dry up the already sparse available food supply, according to Miller.
“We’re going to see those horses starving to death out on the range,” he said. “The humane thing is to get this going now.”
“This” is a proposed roundup and offering for adoption of the excess horse population – a much more humane solution than simply culling the herd, which is what BLM is supposed to do by its own rules, and which it is perfectly happy to do with Desert Tortoises.
In my opinion, it is long past time for the Western states to reclaim control of their own lands (excepting Federal forts and installations called out in the Constitution), and manage resources locally. Distant and tyrannical government is not exactly doing a bang-up job, is it?
Mike is a British import of almost 40 years, who was a conservative in the days of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
A staunch constitutionalist, Mike espouses all good causes toward the libertarian side of conservative – EG he who governs least, governs best. He believes that the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights mean what they say, and that candidates for office should take their oaths of office seriously.
Here to defend, without irony “Your rights as Englishmen from distant and tyrannical government”, Mike knows whereof he speaks and exhorts all US citizens to live, breathe and teach our history and our constitution.
