Final Swasey, UT 2020 Pub Comm

In June of 2020, the author traveled on Highway 50 across Nevada from Carson City to Ely and on to Milford, Utah. He spent about a week making observations of the famed Sulphur Spanish mustangs and their habitat in the Sulphur Herd Management Area (HMA) as well as other wild horse herds and areas. He was joined by fellow conservationist Stephanie Camfield of New Mexico. Twenty-six ecological, 100'by-20' transects were conducted in the Sulphur HMA. Later the nearby Conger HMA was visited and observations of its wild horses and their habitat were made, including four similar transects. Of the total habitat examined in the Sulphur HMA, it is estimated that 19% needs immediate remedial attention because of damaging impacts that are mainly attributable to livestock and vehicles. Observations of this herd and its habitat does not justify the major BLM-ordered reduction of the rare Sulphur HMA Spanish mustangs to a genetically non-viable level that just occurred in August, 2020. Observations and transects indicated that the Conger HMA herd and habitat is in serious need of restoration. Both HMAs are suffering serious ecological damage due to uncontrolled livestock, vehicle and other impacts. Following the BLM/USGS transect methods (Pellant et al., 2005), for Soils and Site Stability and Hydrologic Function attributes, the sum of percentages for Moderate to Extreme and Extreme to Total is 23.4%, or nearly one fourth, while for the Biotic Integrity attribute, the sum of percentages in the Moderate to Extreme and Extreme to Total is 36.7%, or over a third. Based upon these transects and my visual survey of a much greater area, I urge a significant cut back on livestock and reduction in vehicle impacts, including Off-Highway Vehicles (OHVs) in both HMAs. This is needed to assure truly viable populations of wild horses that are allowed to adapt harmoniously to the ecosystems they inhabit and to stabilize their population by virtue of allowing mature social bands to form and other controls recognized in a sound Reserve Design (Downer, 2014b) approach to wild horse conservation. The wild horses need to receive a much fairer share of forage, water, shelter and other required habitat necessities. Additional observations were made in various wild horse HMAs adjacent to US Highway 50 especially in Nevada. An analysis of BLM wild horse Appropriate Management Levels (AML) for population vis-à-vis legal Herd Management Area acreages reveals an extremely unfair treatment of the wild horses within their legal areas. The AMLs permit only a few to several square miles per individual wild horse at mean permitted levels. Livestock are allocated excessive portions of the forage within the HMAs and in surrounding areas. Several other wild horse HMAs in Utah and Nevada are also examined in this regard. All show the same extreme injustice in non-conformance with the core intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFHBA). A plea for the restoration of the Sulphur and Conger herds and their habitats along with the true intent of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (WFHBA) throughout the West is made on its 50 th anniversary and an elucidation of the wild horses' many positive contributions to ecosystems, economies, wildfire prevention, human society, etc., is given.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2023

Wild Horse Management Pahrump, NV, 2020

Wild horse management Citizens Against Equine Slaughter is opposed to many of the 'new' management practices being put in place for wild horses. Many of these have been put in place with no oversight, not following the Administrative Procedures Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Federal Land Policy Management Act.

Heber Wild Horse Territory Management Plan, Public Comment

The Forest Service proposed a management plan for the Heber wild horses. The plan doesn't include the historic lands used by this herd. The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act mandates that the lands where horses were found in 1971 be managed principally for wild horses and burros. In the proposed plan Forest Service plans to set population levels far below the level needed for genetic viability. This will be a slow genetic extinction of the herd. And this population range Forest Service sees as appropriate does not take into consideration the predators in the area, the true size of their territory, or the public's wishes. In our public comments on this plan, you can see the history of the area, with articles and interviews from before the 1971 Act passed. Information that makes it clear that public lands ranchers in that area were worried about the horses gaining any federal protections well before they did, and they began getting rid of horses. This hasn't stopped to this day. The organizations I volunteer for and work with Citizens Against Equine Slaughter, Wild Horse Observers, and the newly formed Oregon Wild Horse Organization have been volunteering to haul water, do fence maintenance to keep horses off the highway, adjust gate positionings, and most of all document the various bands within the herd. Read the full 2 part series that was our public comments on the proposed management plan. As of July 2022, the Forest Service has not announced a final decision on this plan.

Heber Wild Horse Territory Management Plan Including Appropriate Management Level, Management Actions, and Monitoring Plan Draft Environmental Assessment pt. 2

Engaging Communities, NC State University, 2019

This is the 3rd and final report of the Southeast Equine Research and Education Partnership: The Southeast Equine Research and Education Partnership (SEREP) and eponymous research study arose from a grant received by Isothermal Community College (ICC) from the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). ICC engaged North Carolina State University (NC State) to conduct the study because of its expertise in equine education and because of the “Ultimate Community Partnership” between the two institutions that was ongoing at the time, an intentional community-university partnership between the office of Outreach and Engagement at NC State and the Isothermal community. An interdisciplinary research team from NC State was formed to pursue the scope of work outlined in the contract for the study. Over a period of two years our team engaged with a number of individual, community, and organizational stakeholders in Rutherford and Polk counties and collected a variety of quantitative and qualitative data to determine the feasibility of developing an equine research and education center in the Isothermal region of Western North Carolina. The primary goal was to determine how to take advantage of the long-standing but burgeoning equestrian culture and economy in the region in a way that would serve the needs of existing communities, attract investment, create new businesses and jobs, and stimulate university-level research opportunities. This third and final report builds on findings in the previous two reports and provides a conceptual framework for a comprehensive research and community center focused on horse, human, and environmental health. The proposed Southeast Equine Community and Research Center would accommodate the equine-related education and research needs of local horse owners and farms, small businesses, and private and non-profit industries. We have provided conceptual and business models, as well as physical design scenarios, that outline a community-oriented, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable center for research and education in the area. The center would increase local capacity and provide synergy to the ongoing initiatives by ICC to provide training and other educational opportunities aimed at building the equine workforce. And finally, in the areas of equine-related research, the center would provide an opportunity to leverage the strengths of NC State University in the agricultural, animal, natural, social, and veterinary sciences. Our research determined that one of the more promising areas of equine-related research, and one for which there are few other centers in the United States, is in equine-assisted activities (e.g. riding, learning, psychotherapy). In addition, the agricultural and technology needs of the local areas as well as the state of North Carolina would be well-served by research in the production of premium horse hay and other forages, manure and pasture management, and the development of a variety of agribusiness opportunities. Finally, a center would build on the increased equestrian-related visitors to the region and provide spaces for incubating small businesses and educating local communities and tourists on all aspects of the historical and present-day relationship between horses and humans. Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3261814 Publication Date: 2019 Publication Name: Engaging Communities Lab, NC State University

Environmental Practice, 2016

I am not a professional "environmental practitioner." I am a member of the public, a citizen of the United States of America, whose land, environment, and way of life are affected profoundly by what environmental practitioners do. As practitioners, you are hired to manage land and land resources and to determine what impacts proposed changes in such management may have. My children, grandchildren, and I are among the people who suffer or benefit from the consequences. Sadly, "suffer" is usually the right word, and insufficient even to describe the effects of the injustice we experience. I am a lover of history and the lands and cultures that have impacted me throughout my life. My life began at the end of World War II in an Idaho ranching, logging, and farming community surrounded by rivers, lakes, and forests. The community is steeped in history, some long forgotten. For the first decade of my life, I was raised by my grandparents. Grandpa was born in 1889 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in the year of the Great Flood, and subsequently moved to the Bronx, then left home at age ten and made his way to Idaho to work on the new Bonneville Dam. He settled in Long Valley, Idaho, where he purchased abandoned homesteads and established a lifelong career in ranching and farming in a predominantly Finnish community.