Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Comments on our preliminary EA for this fall’s roundup are due tomorrow – Monday, July 11. Comments from this preliminary document will form the basis of the final EA. If nothing else, and if you haven’t already, please send comments in support of “Alternative 1 – proposed action: Helicopter drive trap and capture up to 60 wild horses in order to remove 50 excess animals. Apply the contraceptive porcine zona pellucida (PZP) with annual boosters over the next five years, and establish a 60% male sex ratio.”

Cinch

Details: Mail to Tom Rice, BLM Associate Field Office Manager, 27501 Highway 184, Dolores, CO 81323, or email to trice@blm.gov. For more information, call Tom Rice at (970) 882-6843. Comments are most helpful if they are specific to Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area and to the proposed gather activities described in the Alternatives section of the EA. Comments received in response to this solicitation, including names and addresses, will be part of the public record.

Hacho & Maiku

We have worked hard – almost four years, since the last roundup in 2007 – to get to this point. Is there more work to do? Of course there is – management has goals, but good management has no end point – it evolves. Right now, this is the next step on the path to sustainable management for the mustangs of Spring Creek Basin. Do we wish bait trapping was being used over the helicopter? Of course we do. We worked on that, and for a variety of reasons, that plan did not come to fruition for this roundup. We’re also working on the gender skewing issue. Sixty percent stallions is actually better than it was after 2007 – and now we know the exact makeup of the herd to ensure it’s no more than that.

Whisper & Aurora

But annual PZP darting is a huge, integral part of the new management plan – and that IS being implemented at this roundup. This is a giant step, and it represents numerous steps in a process that at times has been massively frustrating, and it heralds a valuable new partnership between our advocacy groups (National Mustang Association/Colorado, Four Corners Back Country Horsemen, Mesa Verde Back Country Horsemen – as individual groups and collectively as Disappointment Wild Bunch Partners (which also includes San Juan Mountains Association)) and the Dolores Public Lands Office, managing agency for Spring Creek Basin Herd Management Area. Representative volunteers from these groups will be actively involved at both the roundup and adoption.

To clarify some concerns I’ve heard from people: We are NOT using PZP-22 here again; we are using native PZP, delivered annually via dart. No stallions will be returned to the basin as geldings. Cattle grazing in the basin is NOT part of the current EA – which pertains to the roundup only.

Sustainable management means managing wild horses in the wild. Doing that means reducing population growth. The means to do that is within reach. Please support Alternative 1.

Varoujan

A reminder that comments for the preliminary EA for the scheduled roundup this fall of Spring Creek Basin are due Monday, July 11.

Here’s a link to my previously posted thoughts about this preliminary EA and a request for folks to get their comments in. Again, this roundup and the removal of some horses IS necessary this year. Visitors can attest to how dry it is in the basin, and we’re nearing capacity for what this range can sustain in numbers of horses. Please support “Alternative 1 – Proposed Action: Helicopter drive trap and capture up to 60 wild horses in order to remove 50 excess animals. Apply the contraceptive porcine zona pellucida (PZP) with annual boosters over the next five years, and establish a 60% male sex ratio.”

https://springcreekwild.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/thoughts-on-the-preliminary-ea-for-scb-roundup/