Residents of the western States know of the wild horse population.......

Sure they are really kool to watch gallop across an open meadow/prairie......

But we have tooo many........now what ?

Can't shoot them all.........yes they compete with Desert Bighorns for feed

which would you rather see ??????

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2019/1...wild-horse-problem-and-few-know-about-it

Shoot wild horses and the survivors get harder to hunt than elk.

Interlopers!

Screw the sheep! They haven't done a damn thing to help settle this country!

Let the horses be!!

Wild horses are cuter than bighorns and the snowflakes love cute.

Get shucked of the damn horses.

BS

When they weren't protected we shot the hell out of them where they were overpopulating. It was never a problem getting good shots, and the loin out of the younger ones was great eating.

They're feral animals that are an invasive species. Get rid of them!

Solution...

We'll trap them and release them in Your backyard.


Actually, the sheep fed many explorers and people emigrating west.

Alpo. Or Dire wolves

This^^^^^ a voice of experience

enjoy seeing them both........

Sheep have been here for 1000's of years........

yea....its a Tikka.......6.5x55......

Desert Sheep are awesome......

Shoot them or trap them and use the meat.

Yup, what luv2safari said.

Open country I imagine. Try em in timber.

good plan..........

call your local BLM office tomorrow

Emotion has no business in land management, or wildlife management.

Those that have a romantic notion of wild horses have no case. There are plenty of examples. Horses aren't about to go extinct. Nobody is about to spend their own money to feed wild horses either.

Politics and PC have no place here, in land and wildlife management. Nor in management of invasive species.

Choot 'em! Or round them up to sell the Frenchies to make steaks from.

Shoot 'em.. Feed the coyotes..

be sure to write your democrats also

dog food

But...........

aren't they purty critters............

Shoot them and feed the meat to the homeless or in immigration centers.

Lots of people were just turning their horses out on public land when horse prices got way low, and feed got way high.

I've seen some with brands.

They bring more lawsuits than oil and gas.

The bigger issue isn't the horses (as much as I'd like to see them gone).

It's the horse lovers, and their well paid lawyers.

A "solution" for wild horses in the west has been sought for years.

Politics and emotion-driven responses have not been effective, but the BLM has its hands tied.

The current situation is a BandAid on a broken arm and things will probably get worse long before they get better.

An internet search for wild horses in feedlots will curl your toes.

"The vast majority of the BLM’s budget goes to feeding horses in holding pens".

I seen one that was purple with black mane and tail. Have not been the same since.

LOL...we don't have much of that, and we do have the largest population of feral horses of any State. They're like hunting antelope, actually, and many younger ones are curious. The older herd stallions and lead mares ARE damned smart.

Crazy cat ladies got nothing on crazy horse ladies...

Spending their ex or late husband's money on those worthless hacks.

Most knowledgable horse experts out there just happen to be wimmens too!!! Just asked em! They got the answers!

I will admit that they are pretty and seem to fit on the landscape but I have seen them viciously attack sheep and deer at water sources and have seen what they do to our fragile desert landscape, fug 'em. Some ones have been killing the schidt out of the burros in S. Nevada, good on 'em. Back in the '80s the A-10 jocks used to slay mustangs by the hundreds on the Tonopah Range yet they still breed like rats. They should be open season targets like coyotes.


mike r

I'd like to see both managed properly, keyword being "properly".

I'd like to see Europeans chewing on nice chunk of horse meat again.

Any caliber should work, what’s the problem?

they have a plate.

😂

Then shoot the coyotes.

There's your solution, right there. Let the fighter and attack jocks use them for strafing practice.

Back in the 60's (pre Wild Horse Annie) the BLM would sell the meat to the Canadian market.

Now days we round em up and feed em Dairy quality Alfalfa for life.

One thing not mentioned above is that they do a LOT more damage to the limited water holes than the feed sources.

A herd of Mustangs can and will stomp a water hole into a mud hole in no time making it unusable for wild game or livestock for days or weeks.

They're hell on riparian areas. Seen it myself out at Duckwater in Nevada.

I think you meant StillWater but yea......they do a lot more damage than simply competing for food.

Kill'em all. You could feed a lot of homeless with their meat.

No sir. Duckwater, about 30 or 40 miles west and south of Ely.

"Fragile" is the watchword. It can take 100 years to undo what a small family group can do to a waterhole in 2-3 days.

Gotcha......Duckwater doesn't ring a bell but I know that there's no shortage of Mustangs in that part of NV either.

You folks have rifles. Take care of the problem. Don't brag. Don't answer any questions.

As purty as wild hogs in the south. And wreck as much real estate also.

Do like we do wolves. Five tags each, shoot them almost all year long.

Not wild. Feral.

My first thought was to feed them to all the street people in California. But they'd just schitt 'em all over the sidewalk,...so that's not the answer.

I'd rather have the wild horses than multiple piles of schitt on America's sidewalks.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ho...felony-in-major-step-to-end-animal-abuse

I personally think they are not "wild" as they were not indigenous to North America for thousands of years until they brought over here by Europeans.

I would classify them as feral animals. Really no different than say domesticated cat or dogs being set free and allowed to survive out on their own.

And horses can over populate an area causing environmental damage and displace natural species (bighorns in this case) as there are no natural species (wolves, coyotes, grizzlies, etc.) to keep them in check. And there is no hunting season on them for that to help keep them in check either.

So I would prefer bighorns to feral horses.

Too bad horses don't grow antlers or horns... People would be filling out applications and swiping credit cards to hunt them in the states they exist, if they could measure'em or have something to hang on the wall.

No natural predators to speak of and they live a long time. I couldn't care less if they shot all the feral horses.

Congress, get some.

It always seemed strange to me. Why hogs gone feral are so hated they are trapped and killed without restraint. Then horses gone feral are loved so much they are protected.

Pay a bounty for their scalps, both ears attached.

Allow them to be rounded up and marketed to the French.

Remove all penalties for shooting feral horses.

Those are some pretty good looking horses in those photos. Not at all like the inbred awful looking things they bring in to Pauls Valley, OK. Shouldn’t be too hard to trap and castrate the males. I don’t believe they’ve worked too hard at eliminating them. They’re making too much money taking care of them. If they’re determined to keep them, at least turn some quality stallions out with the mares.

says the guy that's never been around wild horses....

Are you sure of that?

Berger’s or TSX?

They need population control by what ever means is necessary.

Oregon does a great job of holding horse numbers in check, and for the most part, our remaining horses only frequent sheep country if truly desperate for forage. The greatest competition is with cattle on public land grazing allotments.

We do have a need for sensible management, use, and disposal of horses. No kill plants anymore, so a guy can't make a few hundred from aged domestic stock via the chicken/pet food route. Now it's a significant expense to get rid of a horse.

We need to get back to the mindset that horses are stock as opposed to pets, as our government is spending millions to sustain unwanted animals.

There is sector of society that truly cherishes our wild stock. Cookie is out chasing deer right now with her cameras, and there are several pro photographers that work the same country. Their best selling images are pictures of well colored horses in expansive landscapes. They'll out sell a bighorn sheep image 10 to 1. The below linked Hollywood herd is actually managed for color by our local BLM district and has a sizable tourist following. The fight pictued below occurred within 30 yds of our truck.

Hollywood herd link.

Another link

They also have Facebook coverage, but I don't go there.

The Hollywood critters are habituated and will tolerate hikers within their midst. Cookie will get a few shots if passing through their midst, but is in no way a serious follower.


The scattered herds in the balance of Oregon, like those below, will clear the horizon as soon as one pokes his head over the ridgeline.



I have not seen horses here in Oregon attempt to hold or defend a given water hole from any other species or entity. Males vigorously defend their harem but do not fight or defend what one might consider a territory. If they remained within sight of a water source, they'd soon have the forage depleted and have to move to greener pastures. I have seen horses essentially play with stock and pronghorn at water by just taking a run at a group and seemingly finding it entertaining to scatter the group. Essentially kids play as opposed to harassment.

Core-Lokts are fine. Don't overthink this.


If there was another dimension where we elect sensible persons to congress to change the F'ing laws, eradicate the damned things for what they are, it'd be a done deal. But there isn't we don't and it wont be.

Yes, very..... But maybe I should have phrased it as, 'never been around wild horses, IN the wild'.....

There are some chemical castration programs in effect for some of the essentially confined eastern island populations of horses. There's some criticism though as the typical herd/band stability is disrupted due to extended or continuous heat cycles of the mares. More and extended fighting among males that would not be seen in a typical short breeding season. Likely would be harder to apply to herds on our extensive western landscapes though.

One can find small groups of truly castrated males in many western herds. Probably they've been turned out by frustrated owners in the private sector. They do not, however, have the will or desire to assemble and hold harems and typically form their own sort of generally rejected subgroup. Castrate all but a few males, and those intact will still assure the available mares are bred.

They are beautiful horses. But at the cost of big game? No thanks please.

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/l...277-369d90b3-2916-49c7-9bb1-e6eba87d392b

Glue and dog food sounds like a good use for them.

https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/r...277-8031b8f4-2c70-49d2-8251-f68cdf0dfcb3

Nah, it reminds me of the woolgrowers meeting where the lady addressed the group and suggested neutering the wild coyotes to keep down the sheep depradation. About that time, the grizzled ol' sheepman stood up and told her that she didn't understand. The coyotes weren't fugging our sheep, they were EATING our sheep......

Huntsman22:

A good one. Reminds me of the cattle guard budget cut that's attributed to nearly every sitting president. Let the stockmen guard their own cattle.

Trap them and transport a bunch up here. We need something to supplement the caribou herds for the Anchorage hunters.

shoot them with lead free bullets and let the condors eat them!

Back around 1980, a couple of friends and myself went to Cross Plains TN, to the wild horse adoption center, and got us a few of those mustangs. We all had horses, but were intrigued by the mustangs, and wanted to see if we could break them and make a good horse out of them.

As far as I'm concerned, that was a few dollars and some of my time that was a total waste. While I'm sure that some people who got them did have a positive outcome, and as a matter of fact one of the horses we brought back was broke to ride rather good, there are far too many good domesticated horses out there for anyone wanting a horse.

I'm not in the West, so I don't see the damage they do, but having horses of my own, I know that it's very easy for them to overgraze. Since there are no more "wild" Injuns to have a use for the wild horses, they don't need to be running around overpopulating their range. As much as I like horses, and I even like the thought of wild horses running around free, there numbers need to be controlled, and they don't need to cause the apparent problems they are.

DIdn't bother the Anti's one bit to push for the introduction of wolves to our Western states to kill hundreds of thousands of elk. An Elk brings a lot more revenue to these states then a horse that is not even a native species.

The Wild Horse Act and the Marine Mammal Act are 2 classic examples of a congress voting without taking time analyse what will happen if the plan works. It's all emotion without knowledge. A big problem is writing these bills without a sunset clause. Once enacted, they can't get rid of them when they turn into disasters.

Has about the same validity as the suggestion made above.

Must be the liberal mindset at work.

They wanna castrate everything. Horses, coyotes, real men. No testicles allowed...


I have a helluva test for them down here with all the wild pigs, if they wanna see how well that works, and how easy it would be...

Actually....no explorer or people ever rode a sheep across a river or 3000 miles across the USA and I've never see a frickin sheep pulling a plow!!

A horse could cross the country with a rider but on the Oregon trail, oxen did the bulk of the pulling. Horses couldn't take the day after day stress. Oxen were slow and ugly but they could keep going in conditions that killed horses.

Seems simple enough, dog meat.

I understand they are competing with the bighorn, not ƒucking them.

Best solution! The ones the Feds already have rounded up and penned should be turned into dog food.

Kill em all.

The French dont want them.

Apparently they are a problem in the southern part of our province too. I can't see any good reason that it shouldn't be permissible to shoot them. Why are they any more special than any other creature out there?

Alpo, Germany, France. That's the solution.

The problem is, the horsie freaks have more money than brains. You'd be amazed the amount of money available to hire lawyers to sue to keep this stupidity ongoing.

Crazy azz laws here.
As a kid my best friends family processed horse meat for export[now illegal I suppose]. We ate horse all of the time. Good eating!

Get rich quick

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bureau...y-you-1000-to-adopt-a-mustang-wild-horse

You are completely ignorant of the problem, so why don't you go tromp a swamp and butt out.

Unbelievable that taxpayer dollars are used to manage an invasive species to make them prettier.

Gooberment insanity

Buzzards gotta eat!

Problems are opportunity.


Free range, grass fed organic protein.


With that tag,
They are worth $12/# in celephane.

Wolf packs and mountain lions would help.

The most expensive coffee (works out to about $60 per cup) comes from beans extracted from feces of elephants. I think with right amount of spices and advertising campaign the rich might be willing to eat free range, grass fed horse meat.

The ignorance runs deep in this thread.

I spend a lot of time in areas that have wild horses. Honestly I feel their numbers need to be reduced by 75-80 percent. I say this as a guy whose family raised horses for a living. What do I think should happen? RIFLES. I think they should just open them up to long range target shooting. Don’t kill all of them just reduce the numbers to the amount I am saying ..

I imagine they are a lot like coyotes.

Despite man's best efforts to kill them off, they still thrive.

BLM & USFS policy sure ain't putting a dent in them.

Grumpy grumps - how many wild horses do you have in Northeast Louisiana?