BLM Ignores Cattle Grazing Impact, Blames Wild Horses: Report

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is under scrutiny for allegedly underreporting the damage caused bylivestockgrazing on public rangelands in Utah, while disproportionately blaming wild horses for habitat degradation. A recent analysis by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) suggests that cattle, which vastly outnumber wild horses, play a significant role in this environmental issue.

TheBureau of Land Managementchronically underreports the extent of damage to public rangelands caused bylivestockgrazing in Utah in apparent defiance of policies that mandate regularrangeland health assessments, according to an analysis of federal data.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)on Monday released a report that highlights theBLM’s eagerness to blame wild horses for habitat degradation in western Utah, while systematically ignoring the larger role of cattle, which far outnumber wild horses.

The group’s analysis ofBLMrangeland health data, obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, concludedlivestockgrazing was a significant cause of habitat degradation on a majority of lands where theBLMand the U.S. Geological Survey have publicly implicated wild horses in declines of sage grouse habitat.

Arecent USGS studyfound that by 2034 sage grouse numbers could drop by upward of 70% if wild horse populations continue their unbridled growth at current rates.

Stade noted that cattle outnumber wild horses on the West’s public lands 30 to 1. Within theBLM’s designated wild horse “herd management areas,” or HMAs, the ratio is about 9 to 1, depending on the time of year.

ABLMspokeswoman was not able to offer comment by press time.

Over the past two years, theBLMhas rounded up about a third of the horses roaming freely in Utah, putting them up for adoption or incarcerating them for life in contract corrals and pastures, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers. To justify theroundups, the agency often cited the dire conditions of drought-depleted rangelands.

Last year, theBLMremoved 1,824 horses from five HMAs and another 525 this year, most of those from thebeloved Onaqui herdthat roam around the Onaqui Mountains about 60 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. According to theBLM’s latest count, about 4,121 wild horses and burros inhabit Utah’s 19 herd management areas totaling 2.5 million acres.

Most of these HMAs are on lands overseen by theBLM’s Fillmore field office, which has sponsored five horseroundupssince 2020.

In most instances, theBLMclaimed excessive horse numbers were damaging rangelands. TheBLM’s former acting directorWilliam Perry Pendley, who served during the last two years of the Trump administration and oversaw adramatic increase in roundups, characterized wild horses as an “existential threat” to rangeland health — even though free-roaming horses are protected under federal law.

Environmentalists and horse advocates dispute Pendley’s assertions since cattle have such a larger presence on these lands than horses.

UnderBLMpolicies, the agency is to conduct periodicrangeland health assessmentson the thousands of public land grazing allotments, according to Peter Lattin, a formerBLMcontractor that PEER hired to analyze the data. These assessments are done to determine a rangelands’ watershed functionality, nutrient cycling, water quality and habitat quality, and to identify the reasons why a range may be substandard.

Based on a review ofBLM’s own records, PEER said 40 million acres offederal landsfail to meet standards for water, vegetation, soils and ability to support wildlife because of overgrazing. PEER stitched the data into one big data set andorganized it into a mapposted online.

“We have been able to find no evidence thatBLMhas conducted any such analysis of its own, however, or even reviewed the data, or, most importantly, used it to guide land management decision-making,” Whitehouse’s letter continued. “While wild horses certainly impact sage grouse habitat, to focus conservation efforts for this habitat on addressing impacts made by thousands of wild horses, while ignoring troves of data on the impacts from millions of cattle, undermines your efforts to create a culture of scientific integrity atDOI.”

Reports generated byBLM’s Fillmore office, which administers most of Utah’s horse management areas, paint a suspiciously rosy picture of rangeland health, according to the PEER analysis.BLMdata indicates that nearly all rangelands meet standards in Beaver and Millard counties, but just across the Nevada state line the rangelands do not meet standards, according to Lattin.

Utah lands are probably not in better shape, he said. A more likely explanation is the Utah field office is not doing its job since it is obvious the rangelands in these counties are not in good health andlivestockgrazing is having an impact, Lattin argues.

The analysis points to a double standard when it comes to assessing the impacts of foraging ungulates: Wild horses and burros get blamed when rangelands suffer, while domesticlivestockget a pass.

The most controversial Utah roundup in years targeted the Onaqui herd, which is overseen by theBLM’s Salt Lake field office. That sprawlingHMA overlaps 10 grazing allotments, four of which theBLMdata indicate are failing to meet standards for rangeland health.

“One of these identifieslivestock, as well as wild horses, as a cause for this failure, but its categorization of the allotment’s health deliberately obscures thelivestockimpact and attributes all the damage to factors other thanlivestock,” Stade wrote in an email.

“Given its pattern of denying grazing impacts, it is hard to take Interior’s pledge to be guided by the bestscienceseriously,” added Stade, pointing to worsening drought conditions throughout the West. “Despite the unmistakable red flags, Interior is not even studying, let alone planning, any widespread, programmatic changes inlivestockstocking rates or management to prevent further sage grouse decline.”

Horse advocates cited the new report to renew their insistence theBLMshould jettison its reliance on costly helicopter horseroundupsin favor of fertility control for keeping horse numbers in check.

In aSept. 9 letter to Haaland, the Sierra Club called on the Interior secretary to eliminatelivestockgrazing inherd management areas, tying such a move to accomplishing the goals of President Joe Biden’s “30 by 30″ conservation initiative.

Originally posted by Salt Lake Tribune