Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area Population Control Environmental Assessment

Transcription

1 July 11, 2018 VIA E-PLANNING Tami Howell Bureau of Land Management Salt Lake Field Office 2370 South Decker Lake Blvd. West Valley, UT Re: Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area Population Control Environmental Assessment Dear Ms. Howell: Friends of Animals 1 submits these comments in response to the Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area Population Control Environmental Assessment 2 (hereinafter, Onaqui EA ) to request that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) consider the impacts of its actions and seize plans intended to capture and suppress the wild and free characteristics of these wild horses. The Onaqui Mountain HMA encompasses 205,394 acres of public land, and the surrounding herd area (HA) provides an additional 240,997 acres of viable wild horse habitat. 3 According to a November 2017 population inventory, an estimated 455 horses were counted in and out of the HMA and HA. 4 According to BLM, the current population is 1 Friends of Animals is a non-profit international advocacy organization incorporated in the state of New York since Friends of Animals has nearly 200,000 members worldwide. Friends of Animals and its members seek to free animals from cruelty and exploitation around the world, and to promote a respectful view of nonhuman, free-living and domestic animals. Friends of Animals regularly advocates for the right of wild horses to live freely on public lands, and for more transparency and accountability in BLM s management of wild horses and burros. 2 DOI-BLM-UT-W EA. 3 See Environmental Assessment, Adjustment of Appropriate Management Levels and Herd Management Area Boundaries for the Cedar Mountain and Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Areas, UT , Feb. 19, 2003 (hereinafter, 2003 DR ), at Onaqui EA at 2, 18. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 1

2 estimated to be approximately 500 wild horses in The proposed action identified in the Onaqui EA includes initially rounding up 90% of the existing wild horses (approximately 450 wild horses) from in and around the Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area (HMA) using both helicopters and bait/water trapping. 6 According to the Onaqui EA, approximately 379 wild horses would be permanently removed following the initial roundup. 7 The fate of the 71 horses that are rounded up in the initial gather, but not permanently removed, is unclear. However, it appears BLM aims to return these horses after treating an undisclosed number of mares with the fertility control pesticide porcine zona pellucida (PZP). 8 BLM intends to return periodically over the next ten years to roundup and remove additional wild horses in order to maintain wild horse populations at the low appropriate management level (AML) of 121 wild horses and administer fertility control. 9 This is not the only option. BLM failed to analyze any action alternative that includes an option other than rounding up and permanently removing a majority of the wild horses and subjecting these protected animals to a life of captivity. As discussed in more detail below, BLM should circulate an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) or new Environmental Assessment (EA) that analyzes additional alternatives, including adjusting the AML in the Onaqui Mountain HMA to support additional wild horses, expanding the HMA to include the viable horse habitat in the surrounding HA, and reducing the amount of forage allocated to private ranchers for grazing their domestic livestock within the HMA. BLM should also consider natural controls, including protecting predators, such as mountain lions, in the area. Friends of Animals is also concerned that the EA does not take a hard look at the impacts of the proposed actions and erroneously attributes a disproportionate share of range deterioration in the HMAs to wild horses. Additionally, Friends of Animals is concerned that BLM is attempting to authorize the continued removal and harassment of wild horses for ten years into the future. Friends of Animals asks BLM to consider giving wild horses room to roam freely in the limited space allocated to them. Friends of Animals also asks BLM to fully consider the impacts of its decision and alternatives, including the physical, social and behavioral 5 Onaqui EA at 9. 6 Onaqui EA at 9. 7 Onaqui EA at 9. 8 Onaqui EA at 9; see also Onaqui Mountain Herd Management Area Fertility Control Environmental Assessment, DOI-BLM-UT-W EA, May 2015 (hereinafter, 2015 EA ). 9 Onaqui EA at 1. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 2

3 impacts of its proposed actions on wild horses as well as the positive impacts of wild horses. BLM should consider its obligations under the Wild-Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act. 1. BLM must make the required excess determination before each and every roundup. In 1971, a bipartisan Congress passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act 10 (WHBA or Act) because it was concerned that wild horses were vanishing from the West. Congress declared that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people. 11 Congress stated, wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death, and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found as an integral part of the natural system of public lands. 12 The Act obliges BLM to protect and manage wild free-roaming horses and burros as components of the public lands... in a manner that is designed to achieve and maintain a thriving, natural ecological balance on the public lands. 13 Additionally, the Act mandates that all management activities be at the minimal feasible level. 14 According to the Senate Committee report accompanying the bill: The committee wishes to emphasize that the management of the wild free roaming horses and burros be kept to a minimum both from the aspect of reducing costs of such a program as well as to deter the possibility of zoolike developments. An intensive management program of breeding, branding, and physical care would destroy the very concept that this legislation seeks to preserve... leaving the animals alone to fend for themselves and placing primary emphasis on protecting the animals from continued slaughter and harassment by man U.S.C et seq U.S.C U.S.C U.S.C. 1333(a) U.S.C. 1333(a) nd Congress, Senate Report , June 25, NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 3

4 BLM s regulations specify that there should be self-sustaining populations of healthy wild horses in balance with other uses and productive capacity of the habitat. 16 The regulations also state that management activities affecting wild horses shall be undertaken with the goal of maintaining free-roaming behavior of wild horses on public lands. 17 The WHBA mandates that Secretary maintain a current inventory of wild free-roaming horses and burros on given areas of the public lands to determine AMLs and make determinations as to whether and where an overpopulation exits and whether action should be taken to remove excess animals. 18 The WHBA only authorizes BLM to remove excess wild horses in limited circumstances. 19 In making such a management decision, BLM must make a determination that: (1) an overpopulation [of wild horses] exists on a given area of the public lands, and (2) action is necessary to remove excess animals. 20 Moreover, a determination to remove wild horses must be based on, among other things, the current inventory of lands within his jurisdiction. 21 In interpreting these statutory requirements, BLM has issued guidance that in making an excess determination the authorized officer must first analyze: (1) grazing utilization and distribution, (2) trend in range ecological condition, (3) actual use, (4) climate (weather) data, (5) current population inventory, (6) wild horses and burros located outside the HMA in areas not designated for their long-term maintenance, and (7) other factors such as the results of land health assessments which demonstrate removal is needed to restore or maintain the range in a thriving, natural ecological balance. Such determination should be made prior to every removal. In the Onaqui EA, BLM fails to consider what qualifies as a self-sustaining, healthy population of wild horses and how its proposed action would impact the health and sustainability of wild horses. BLM also fails to adequately analyze any plans or alternatives that protect the wild horses in the Onaqui HMA. Instead, BLM based its decision on uninformed and incomplete analyses about the effect of wild horses on the range, and an imbalanced preference to other uses, such as authorizing private ranchers to graze cattle in the HMA. BLM s proposed action would subject protected wild horse populations to multiple roundups, experimental population control, and, in most cases, a life of captivity. BLM has C.F.R (a) C.F.R (c) U.S.C. 1331(b)(1). 19 See 16 U.S.C. 1333(b)(2) U.S.C. 1333(b)(2) U.S.C NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 4

5 not made a proper determination that there are excess horses or that action is necessary (now or over the next ten years) to remove them as required by the WHBA at its own guidance documents. In addition, the goals and objectives of previous environmental analyses as well as the requirements of the WHBA include managing wild horse and burros for herd viability and sustainability, and maintaining herds that consist of healthy animals that exhibit diverse age structure, good conformation, and any characteristics unique to the specific herd. Indeed, the 2003 DR specifically states that [p]rogram goals have expanded beyond simply establishing thriving ecological balance... for individual herds, to achieving and maintaining vigorous and stable populations. 22 Finally, BLM s duty to remove wild horses is not implicated because it has not properly determined that there are excess horses and that removal is necessary. BLM is prohibited from removing wild horses unless it has first made a determination that: (1) an overpopulation [of wild horses] exists on a given area of the public lands, and (2) action is necessary to remove excess animals. Here, BLM has failed to adequately make this determination and ignored its own guidelines. The proposal to initially remove 90% of the horses in the Onaqui Mountain HMA and continue with removals and fertility control for the next ten years are inconsistent with the BLM s duties under the WHBA. Prior to taking action, BLM must correct these deficiencies, as well as other violations of the law. 2. BLM cannot authorize continued removal and harassment of wild horses for ten years into the future. BLM s proposed action and alternatives to continue removals and fertility control ten years into the future conflict with the WHBA and BLM s own regulations and guidance. The WHBA requires BLM to make a determination that wild horses are excess and removal is necessary prior to removing horses based on current information. Current inventories and site-specific removal decisions are also necessary to ensure that BLM manages wild horses at the minimal level necessary. BLM does not have, and cannot have, information that removal is necessary throughout the next decade. Range conditions, wild horse numbers, and the appropriate management level can change each year. As such, both the WHBA, BLM s implementing regulations, and its own guidelines require site specific analysis and continued monitoring prior to removing excess wild horses. There is no authority for BLM to authorize removal and harassment in such a vast area for ten years, as it proposes to do in the EA at issue here. The continued DR at 2. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 5

6 removal and harassment would clearly conflict with the WHBA and BLM s own regulations and policy. The BLM should consider its obligations under the National Environmental Policy Act. 1. The proposed action meets the level of significance that triggers preparation of an EIS. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires an acting agency to prepare a detailed environmental impact statement (EIS) for federal actions that significantly affect the quality of the human environment. The EIS should include (i) the environmental impact of the proposed action, (ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented, [and] (iii) alternatives to the proposed action. 23 The proposed action and alternatives in the Onaqui EA would result in major environmental impacts and warrant preparation of an EIS. First, as BLM expressly points out, many people in the region and across the nation enjoy viewing the wild horses in the Onaqui Mountain HMA. 24 As Congress found and declared, wild horses are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people Second, the intensity of the proposed action also indicates that the action necessitates further review in an EIS. This action has severe impacts and covers close to 450,000 acres of land with unique characteristics. Third, the effects of the proposed action and alternatives are highly controversial and involve unique and unknown risks. For example, the impacts of fertility control measures, such as PZP, are highly controversial and involve unique and unknown risks. This action could have a precedential effect on other future wild horse roundups. Finally, this decision would result in significant environmental impacts beyond those already addressed in the 1990 Pony Express Resource Management Plan (RMP) (as amended). Therefore, an EIS is required U.S.C. 4332(2)(C). 24 Onaqui EA at U.S.C NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 6

7 2. The BLM should thoroughly analyze the impacts of the proposed action and alternatives. As discussed above, the proposed action warrants an EIS. However, regardless of whether BLM prepares an EA or an EIS it must take a hard look at the impacts of an action prior to making an irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources. 26 NEPA requires BLM to adequately evaluate all potential environmental impacts of proposed actions. 27 To meet this obligation, BLM must identify and disclose to the public all foreseeable impacts of the proposed action, including direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts. 28 Additional NEPA analysis is needed on the following: (1) the impact of the proposed action and alternatives on the genetic viability of the wild horse population in the Onaqui HMA; (2) the impacts of fertility control measures; (3) the positive impacts of wild horses on the environment; and (4) the behavioral and physiological impacts of BLM s proposed action and alternatives on wild horses. a. BLM must consider the proposed actions impact on the genetic diversity and health of the wild horses. The BLM must consider the impacts of its proposed actions on the genetic viability of the wild horses in the Onaqui Mountain HMA. BLM proposes to remove the majority of wild horses in the HMA, but fails to take into account that the proposed action puts the health of the horses at risk and could create herds that are not self-sustaining. Dr. Gus Cothran advises at least 150 to 200 horses must remain in the herd to ensure genetic viability. By initially removing 90% of the population, BLM threatens the genetic health of this cherished herd. Generally speaking, the Onaqui Mountain HMA AML of 121 to 210 wild horses on over 250,000 acres of land does not meet the threshold to ensure genetic viability, and removing a majority of the population will create a larger problem. Moreover, the use of fertility control only compounds the problem. BLM provides absolutely no discussion or analysis on the genetic effects of removing 90% of the population. It is clear that removing the majority of wild horses, applying fertility control, and returning only enough to meet the lower or mid-range of the already low AML will put the health, and the genetic variability and viability of the wild horses at risk. According to BLM s own guidance and applicable land use plans, BLM is required to monitor the population and genetic health of the wild horse populations. BLM admits that it has conducted several roundups in the past years, but the Onaqui EA is completely void of 26 Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Res. Defense Council, 462 U.S. 87, (1983). 27 See 42 U.S.C. 4332(2)(C). 28 See 42 U.S.C. 4332(2); see also 40 C.F.R NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 7

8 any information about the impacts of these roundups on the genetic variability and viability of these wild horse herds. In fact, the EA includes no genetic reports on the wild horses in the Onaqui Mountain EA. The Onaqui EA also completely fails to consider how the proposed action and alternatives, in combination with past and foreseeable future removal and fertility control, will have cumulative impacts on the genetic health and diversity of wild horses in and around the HMA. BLM must disclose and analyze this information before taking any action to impact the wild horses in the Onaqui HMA. b. BLM must consider the social, behavioral, and physiological impacts of population growth control measures on wild horses. The proposed alternative includes the use of fertility control. Friends of Animals, concerned members of the public, and the scientific community have repeatedly provided BLM with scientific studies regarding the permanent and even fatal impacts of various wild horse population control methods. Friends of Animals urges BLM to review and consider recent scientific research and disclose the actual impacts of population control on wild horses. Specifically, the Onaqui EA does not take a hard look at the impacts of PZP. Under the Proposed Action, BLM would return to the HMA periodically to inject horses with this fertility control drug. Although BLM references different studies about the negative impacts of PZP, it concludes that PZP contraception appears to be temporary and reversible, and does not appear to cause out-of-season births. However, even the studies cited by BLM indicate that repeated applications of PZP may cause irreversible sterility in mares. Moreover, the most recent and reliable data indicate that it also causes out of season births and comes with a host of other detrimental impacts. For example, Knight (2014) found that three to four years of fertility control applications may lead to permanent sterility. Bechert et al. (2013) found that ovarian function was affected. Nuñez et al. (2010) found that PZP caused mares to foal later, which could impact foal survivorship and decrease band stability. Ransom et al. (2013) confirmed PZP could cause a shift in reproductive timing. Indeed, numerous new studies have been published in the last ten years that indicate that PZP should not be used as a population management tool for wild horses (or any wild animal for that matter). BLM must take a hard look at the abundance of concerns associated with PZP, including behavioral changes, the potential of late foaling dates, the harmful effects on ovaries after PZP treatment in mares, and the very high potential of permanent sterility. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 8

9 c. BLM should consider the ethical impacts of its actions, including consideration of the physical, social, and behavioral impacts of the proposed roundup, and subsequent captivity, on wild horses. BLM acknowledges that roundups can be stressful for wild horses and indirect impacts could include social displacement or increased conflict between studs. However, BLM fails to acknowledge or discuss the harmful consequences of the stress, specifically the stress caused by helicopter roundups to all horses on the range. For decades, BLM has used helicopters to roundup and remove excess wild horses from public lands. Flying at low altitudes, federal agents or contractors drive a herd, sometimes for miles, to an area where individual horses can be trapped, loaded onto trucks, and taken to a holding center. Depending on its size, a roundup can last for several days or several weeks. The BLM maintains that helicopters are a humane way of driving wild horses across the land to traps where they can be removed by land-based vehicles. Increasingly, biologists, wild horse advocates, and others disagree. Every indication is that an approaching helicopter produces an equally wide range of emotional and physical responses in a wild horse as it would in a human. Wild horse behavioral specialist, Dr. Bruce Nock, studied and described the intricate physiological events that take place within a wild horse subjected to these roundups. 29 As described by Dr. Nock, horses initially experience what is known as the fight-or-flight reaction bodily changes that enhance a horse s chances of surviving a frightening situation by increasing his/her alertness, capacity for physical exertion and ability to withstand injury. 30 In Dr. Nock s professional opinion, while this reaction might enhance a wild horse s chance of surviving the roundup itself, it is not an exaggeration to say, as gathers are routinely done in the USA, if a wild horse doesn t die straight off from the immediate devastation and commotion, it compromises him/her physically and mentally, putting him on a path of accelerated deterioration. 31 Indeed, stress from the actual roundup only begins for wild horses targeted for removal when the helicopters arrive. Again, Dr. Nock explains: But these overt consequences are just the tip of the iceberg.... The body doesn t distinguish between a fight-or-flight situation, like being chased by a helicopter, and [other] psychological stressor[s]. That means the bad news for 29 Nock, Wild Horses The Stress of Captivity. 30 Nock, Wild Horses the Stress of Captivity at Id. at 2. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 9

10 wild horses only begins with the gather.... To these wild horses, the sources of stress must seem endless. Everything is foreign... truly disturbing for a species that depends on familiarity for safety and comfort. [ ] Everything about captivity is probably stressful to one degree or another to wild horses, especially when it begins with the traumatic experience of a gather. It is extremely detrimental to their long-term health and soundness. 32 Essentially, the stress of capture and captivity can put the horse on a path of accelerated deterioration, leading to long-term physical and mental health problems and a shortened life expectancy. 33 Likewise, the ongoing trauma experienced by wild horses after the initial roundup extends to both the captive horses and those horses (if any) that were left in the wild. BLM can longer sweep these impacts under the rug. d. BLM should consider the positive impacts of wild horses. BLM s entire analysis ignores scientific information about the positive impact of wild horses. It provides in incomplete and misleading analysis of the impact of wild horses on the range and the no action alternative. Studies demonstrate that wild horses support healthy ecosystems on public land if given sufficient habitat and left alone. 34 For example, wild horses help spread plant seeds over large areas where they roam. Wild horses do not decompose the vegetation they ingest as thoroughly as ruminant grazers, such as cattle or sheep, which allows the seeds of many plant species to pass through their digestive tract intact into the soil that the wild horses fertilize by their droppings. Wild horses also help to prevent catastrophic fires and help to build more moisture-retaining soils. Soil moisture dampens out incipient fires and makes the air coating the earth moister. Horses and burros are much better equipped for this increasingly important service to all the life community, including man, than ruminant grazers, particularly domesticated ones. Indeed, these equids refill a significant empty niche within the North American ecosystem. 35 Additionally, wild horses have beneficial relationships with other wildlife, such as bighorn sheep. 36 Unlike cattle, wild horses do not 32 Id. at Id. at See attached Craig Downer, How Wild Horses & Burros Help North American Ecosystems; see also Lundgren, E. J., Ramp, D., Ripple, W. J., & Wallach, A. D. (2017).. 35 Id. 36 Coates, K. P., & Schemnitz, S. D. (1994). Habitat use and behavior of male mountain sheep in foraging associations with wild horses. The Great Basin Naturalist, 54(1), NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 10

11 stay at water sources, but rather move after drinking and will travel long distances from water. 37 BLM notes that some areas where wild horses trail demonstrate soil compaction. However, BLM fails to acknowledge findings that areas around horse trails experience benefits including increased native plant diversity, increases in plant species diversity. 38 Wild horses select preferred grasses, sedges and herbs, including coarse, highly abrasive grasses, creating a mosaic of high and low vegetation that creates a more diverse habitat for invertebrates, small vertebrates and herbaceous plants. 39 BLM also misstated the results of the studies it cites. For example, the Onaqui EA claims that species richness is greater in areas where horses don t graze. However, the study indicated that mammal species richness did not differ between horse-occupied and horse-removed sites. 40 The Onaqui EA indicates that there will be an ever-increasing wild horse population if it does not conduct the roundup. However, such concerns are misguided and BLM provides no citations to support its conclusion. Contrary to BLM s unsupported conclusions, wild horses are self-regulated and the population would likely come into balance with the ecosystem if left alone. Limiting horses to artificially low numbers not only negatively affects the individual horses and the genetic viability of the herd, but it is also short-sighted and ineffective because it prompts short-term population growth. A National Academy of Science report concluded that BLM s management practices are facilitating high horse population growth rates. 41 It explained that, [r]emovals are likely to keep the population at a size that maximizes population growth rate, which in turn maximizes the number of animals that must be removed and processed through holding facilities. 42 This will exacerbate all the negative impacts of roundups, by promoting population growth and requiring increased roundups. Moreover, it directly conflicts with the WHBA s mandate that the all management activities shall be at the minimal feasible level. 16 U.S.C. 1333(a). 37 Ganskopp, D., & Vavra, M. (1986). Habitat use by feral horses in the northern sagebrush steppe. Journal of Range Management, Ostermann-Kelm, Stacey D., Edward A. Atwill, Esther S. Rubin, Larry E. Hendrickson, and Walter M. Boyce. "Impacts of feral horses on a desert environment." BMC ecology 9, no. 1 (2009): Naundrup, P. J., & Svenning, J. C. (2015). A geographic assessment of the global scope for rewilding with wild-living horses (Equus ferus). PloS one, 10(7), e Beever, E.A., Brussard, P.F., Community- and landscape-level responses of reptiles and small mammals to feral-horse grazing in the Great Basin. Journal of Arid Environment 59, National Research Council, Using Science to Improve the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program: A Way Forward. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2013, Id. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 11

12 The BLM should not ignore the positive impacts of wild horses. The BLM should consider adjusting the AML in the Onaqui Mountain HMA, and instead of condemning the wild horses to a life of captivity, allowing the horses to be self-sustaining. 3. BLM should consider reasonable alternatives to the proposed action. BLM should consider reasonable alternatives to achieve a thriving natural ecological balance in the Onaqui Mountain HMA, including: (1) adjusting the current AML; (2) adjusting forage allocated to cattle sheep, (3) expanding the HMA to include the surrounding HA; and (4) protecting predators, such as mountain lions, in order to achieve natural population control. To the extent that BLM argues that the purpose and need of the action is limited to removing wild horses, it has defined the purpose and need in unreasonably narrow terms. a. The BLM should consider re-evaluating the current AML to support additional wild horses in the HMA. BLM s states that raising the AML was not considered for detailed analysis because BLM thoroughly considered and established the AML, including the population range in preparing the 2003 DR Notably, the 2003 DR added surrounding natural winter range to the Onaqui Mountain HMA, thereby adding approximately 161,514 acres to the HMA and significantly expanding the surrounding HA. Moreover, that analysis was conducted over fifteen years ago, and therefore, any analysis took place before the expansion occurred. Wild horses in the Onaqui Mountain HMA have grown to an estimated 455 individuals based on a November 2017 inventory which counted wild horses both in and outside of both the HMA and HA, including horses on the DPG Military Base and in Juab County south of HMA boundary. 44 BLM provides neither historic inventories nor any counts that include only horses within the HMA. The number of horses residing in the HA is equally unclear. Therefore, without precise inventory numbers, it is uncertain how many horses will be permanently removed from within the Onaqui Mountain HMA itself. BLM must provide complete inventories, both historic and current, and include the areas where the horses were found and counted. Without this information, the public is left completely uninformed, and likely mislead, about the number of excess horses. Moreover, BLM is giving itself free reign to remove any number of horses and will likely force the population below AML. 43 Scoping Report at Onaqui EA at 2. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 12

13 BLM s reliance on past AMLs to justify rounding up wild horses in 2018 and ten years into the future is not supported by the law. According to its own legally binding commitments, BLM should formally re-evaluate the AMLs and adjust AML s based on monitoring data. b. The BLM must consider reducing the number of livestock or the number of AUMs allotted to livestock. The Onaqui EA fails to analyze reducing the number of livestock allowed to graze in the HMA in order to improve the range conditions. Instead, the Onaqui EA erroneously concludes that it would be inconsistent with the current land use plans and the WHBA. However, BLM fails to identify how it would be inconsistent with the land use plans. In fact, nothing in the applicable land use plans restricts BLM from recalculating AML or reducing AUMs for domestic livestock. Moreover, in the 2018 Scoping Report, BLM expressly states that it will be addressing livestock grazing management actions beginning in If this is the case, BLM should conduct this analysis before BLM issues an EA that includes removing a majority of the wild horses within the Onaqui Mountain HMA. Finally, BLM s regulations explicitly state that it can close public lands to grazing use by all or a particular kind of livestock if necessary to provide habitat for wild horses or burros, to implement herd management actions, or to protect wild horses or burros from disease, harassment or injury. 43 CFR The area covered by the HMA AND HA includes eleven (11) established grazing allotments. According to the Scoping Report, grazing permits on the Government Creek, West Lookout Pass and Indian Springs allotments, which intersect the Sheeprock Greater Sage-Grouse population area, are scheduled to begin the renewal process starting in BLM states that the renewal process will include a rangeland health assessment of these allotments, which will determine how the current grazing management is affecting the land health. 46 Despite BLM s erroneous and misleading analysis regarding the impacts of wild horses, livestock cause more harm to the range than wild horses. Reducing the amount of livestock grazing would be more likely to achieve a thriving natural ecological balance. Therefore, BLM must consider reducing the number of livestock or the number of AUMs allotted to livestock so that wild horses can thrive and be an integral part of the natural system of public lands, as required by law. 45 Scoping Report at Scoping Report at 3. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 13

14 Reducing forage for livestock in wild horse ranges is not only consistent with BLM s legal duties, it is required. The proposed action, to remove wild horses while refusing to reduce forage for private ranchers blatantly violates the WHBA, which states that the range should be principally devoted to wild horses. Moreover, the multiple use principles of FLPMA do not preclude BLM from reducing forage allotments to private ranchers. BLM still authorizes private grazing on the majority of BLM land. Of the 245 million acres of public land managed by the BLM, 155 million is open to livestock grazing (virtually all BLM land outside of Alaska). By contrast, wild horses are restricted to just 26.9 million acres, which they must share with cattle and sheep. Reducing private grazing on the small fraction of public lands where wild horses are found (approximately 11%) would not violate multiple use principles. Thus, Friends of Animals requests that BLM analyze an alternative to the proposed roundup that allocates more forage to wild horses rather than permanently removing the horses from the Onaqui Mountain HMA. c. BLM should consider expanding the area available to wild horses to include nearby HAs. Since the passage of the WHBA, BLM has removed a significant amount of wild horse areas that Congress intended to be protected when it passed the Act. BLM has the authority to manage for wild horses in these areas and should consider either allowing horses to remain in these areas or returning horses to these areas. The herd area surrounding Onaqui Mountain HMA, which amounts to over 240,000 acres of land, is considered overflow areas and used as indicators of potential overstocking problems. 47 BLM must re-evaluate these areas and consider expanding the HMA to include this viable horse habitat. As described above, wild horses contribute significantly to the ecosystem. Expanding the areas available to wild horses would be beneficial for all plants and animals in the area and a fair solution for the alleged issues presented in the EA. d. BLM should consider control by natural means. There is no reliable science showing that removing wild horses is necessary to maintain a thriving ecological balance in the area. However, BLM eliminated from further consideration an alternative that would manage wild horses using natural means, including protecting natural predators, such as mountain lions. The Scoping Report concluded, with no support or citations, that wild horses are a long-lived species with documented foal DR at 23. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 14

15 survival rates exceeding 95%, and are not a self-regulating species. 48 However, the Onaqui EA failed to disclose reasonable opposing views indicating the positive impacts of wild horses and the ability to self-regulate. The Onaqui EA further concludes, again with no support, that [t]his alternative would allow for a steady increase in the wild horse populations which would continue to exceed the carrying capacity of the range and would cause increasing damage to the rangelands until severe range degradation or natural conditions that occur periodically such as blizzards or extreme drought cause a catastrophic mortality of wild horses in the Onaqui Mountain HMA. 49 To the contrary, studies have found that predators, specifically mountain lions, can limit wild horse populations in the United States. 50 Indeed, there are valleys in the West where wild horse herds do not increase because they are kept in check by mountain lions. 51 Managing wild horses naturally is not only free and sustainable, but also ensures that wild horses remain as they should wild. 52 Lions hunted wild horses in North America for millions of years, and they still do. For example, a study in Nevada found that in several mountain ranges of the state, horses made up a majority of the diet of mountain lions. 53 There, some collared and tracked mountain lion mothers were observed eating primarily mustangs, and teaching their young to do the same. 54 Another study found that, during the summer, lions kill a horse every other week and biologists have documented valleys where just a few lions keep a herd in check. 55 That kind of balance could be a boon not just for the wild horse program but for the entire Western ecosystem Scoping Report at Scoping Report at See, e.g., Roelle, J.E., F.J. Singer, L.C. Zeigenfuss, J.I. Ransom, L. Coates-Markle, and K.A. Schoenecker Demography of the Pryor Mountain Wild Horses, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report Reston, VA: U.S. Geological Survey; Turner JW, Morrison ML. Influence of predation by mountain lions on numbers and survivorship of a feral horse population. Southw Natural. 2001; 46(2): ; Turner JW, Wolfe ML, Kirkpatrick, JF. Seasonal mountain lion predation on a feral horse population. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 1992, 70(5): See attached Dave Philips, Let Mountain Lions Eat Horses, N.Y. Times, May 12, 2018, available at See also Wild Horse Country: The History, Myth and Future of the Mustang (2018). 52 See attached Dave Philips, Let Mountain Lions Eat Horses. 53 Id.; see also attached M. Gray, Spencer Jr. J., and Thain, D., Live Trapping and Monitoring Mountain Lion Movements within a Feral Horse Population in Storey County, Nevada, , Proc. 23 rd Vertebr. Pest. Conf., published at Univ. of Calif., Davis Pp , available at 54 Id. 55 Id. 56 Id. NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 15

16 Cougars, also referred to as mountain lions, pumas, or panthers, live all across Utah, from high in the Uinta Mountains to the dry southern Utah deserts, including near Emery, Utah. 57 Cougars have been a protected wildlife species in Utah since According to the Division of Wildlife Resources, there are likely between 2,528-3,936 cougars in Utah judging by the amount of suitable habitat. 58 In the 2003 DR, BLM expressly states that the Onaqui Mountain HMA has fewer wild horses than the nearby Cedar Mountain HMA because of the increased number of mountain lions in the area... which decreases the population growth rate. 59 However, Utah has authorized increased hunting of mountain lions. 60 Protecting these important predators could restore a thriving natural ecological balance in the area. Therefore, BLM must consider a natural control alternative that includes protection of native predators such as mountain lions. BLM s failure to consider this alternative in detail ignores its obligation to manage wild horses at the minimal feasible level, and its obligation under NEPA to consider reasonable alternative. Conclusion. There was a time when millions of horses roamed the West; a time when the ecosystem was diverse, the land was rich, and the landscape wild. Today, public lands in the United States are becoming bleak places largely ecologically unsound because of extensive human involvement. We have killed off or limited the number of nearly every native animal; we have over utilized resources; and we have filled the landscape with non-native species. BLM maintains that there is no longer room for a natural free-roaming population of wild horses. But Friends of Animals believes (and Congress sought) a place on our public lands devoted principally to wild horses, horses free from human exploitation and manipulation. BLM administers million acres of land, and it does not allow any wild horses on 219 million of those acres dedicating approximately 90% of BLM land to other uses and excluding wild horses. However, on the limited land where wild horses are allowed, BLM generally allows all other activities including allowing commercial ranchers to graze their domestic livestock and oil and gas development. In the Onaqui Mountain HMA, BLM authorizes more forage for livestock to graze than for wild horses to graze, despite the fact 57 See Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, Cougars, 58 See Utah Cougar Management Plan, , available at DR at 16; see also 2003 DR at 14 (acknowledging the mountain lions prey on wild horses). 60 See Erin Alberty, Cougar hunting permits to increase in Utah over the objections of wildlife advocates, Salt Lake Tribune, Aug. 31, 2017, available at NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 16

17 that wild horses are a protected species within the area. Then, when BLM is charged with creating a thriving ecological balance on public lands, it seeks to remove wild horses rather than take a hard look at the impact of other activities that are likely responsible for the deterioration of the rangeland. Friends of Animals strongly opposes the roundup and removal of any wild horses within and around the Onaqui Mountain HMA. Friends of Animals also opposes the use of fertility control on wild horses as a population management tool. BLM s increased management and restriction of wild horses strays from the vision of freedom and wildness that Congress sought to protect. Friends of Animals request that the BLM consider the true impact of its proposed actions and consider additional alternatives that protect wild horses before rounding up and permanently removed from their homes. The BLM should instead consider adjusting the AML in the Onaqui Mountain HMA, and limiting conflicting uses that have adverse impacts to the environment, such as grazing livestock and oil and gas development. BLM should also consider natural controls, including protecting mountain lions in the area. Finally, before the BLM decides to conduct any proposed roundups, it must consider the impacts of the roundup and subsequent captivity on the wild horses and must not ignore the ecological benefits of wild horses. Thank you for the opportunity to comment, and please contact me if you have any question or concerns. Sincerely, Courtney McVean Associate Attorney Friends of Animals Wildlife Law Program Western Region Office 7500 E. Arapahoe Rd., Suite 385 Centennial, CO courtney.mcvean@friendsofanimals.org NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS POST ROAD SUITE DARIEN, CT T F WILDLIFE LAW PROGRAM E. ARAPAHOE ROAD SUITE CENTENNIAL, CO T FRIENDSOFANIMALS.ORG 17

18 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): 5-23 Published online January 30, 2014 ( doi: /j.ajls The horse and burro as positively contributing returned natives in North America Craig C. Downer Andean Tapir Fund, P.O. Box 456, Minden, NV USA address: To cite this article: Craig C. Downer. The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America. American Journal of Life Sciences. Vol. 2, No. 1, 2014, pp doi: /j.ajls Abstract: Since the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, debate has raged over whether horses and burros are restored North American natives. Fossil, genetic and archeological evidence supports these species as native. Also, objective evaluations of their respective ecological niches and the mutual symbioses of post-gastric digesting, seminomadic equids support wild horses and burros as restorers of certain extensive North American ecosystems. A Reserve Design strategy is proposed to establish naturally self-stabilizing equine populations that are allowed to harmoniously adapt over generations within their bounded and complete habitats. These populations should meet rigid standards for viability based on IUCN SSC assessments (2,500 individuals). Basic requirements are described for successful Reserve Design including viable habitat as well as specific regions of North America where this could be implemented. Keywords: Equidae, Wild Horses and Wild Burros, Horse and Burro Evolution, Horse and Burro Ecology, North American Native Fauna and Ecosystems, Reserve Design, Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of Introduction All branches of the horse family (Equidae) share an ancient evolutionary origin and long-standing duration in North America, having evolved here for ca. 60-million years ago. Few other mammalian families can lay as much claim to native status and belonging on this continent. Two other extant families in the Order Perissodactyla are the tapir and the rhinoceros families, and both are similarly rooted in North America. From George Gaylord Simpson [1] to Bruce MacFadden [2], various scientists have described the horse family's fascinating story; and their works reveal the ascent of many distinctive yet interwoven equine genera and species over the eons. The horse family has branched out to all continents except Australia (prior to the arrival of whites) and Antarctica. These animals have contributed positively to our planetary communities, and they continue to do so in many ways and on many levels today. The rapid reoccupation of vacant niches in North America by the horses (Equus caballus) and burros (Equus asinus) may be viewed as corroborating their return to ancestral grounds. In the words of the Plains Indians: The grass remembers the horses. In this article, I present evidence for the origin and longstanding evolution of both horse and burro evolutionary branches in North America, and further support the entire horse family as primarily native here. I go on to show that both horses and burros are returned native species and merit protection. In complementary fashion, I also describe the unique ecological roles filled by horses and burros, explaining how they both preserve and restore native ecosystems in the American West. Finally, I propose reserve design as a means by which wild horses and burros can restore themselves as vital components of viable ecosystems and be truly protected as mandated by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of I also suggest regions where this could be possible. 2. Methods I gathered information for this article through a thorough literature review of the history, evolution, ecology, and conservation of wild horses and burros in North America. This review has been a life-long one and accompanied by visits to and observations of many of the wild horse and burro herds and occupied habitats throughout the western United States. This has resulted in a graduate paper on the behavior and ecology of the Pine Nut Range wild horse herd

19 6 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America of western Nevada and other reports and publications. The sources for this article are listed in the references section. I have attended several professional conferences concerning wild horses and burros and other wildlife at which I have presented papers, e.g. International Interdisciplinary Environmental Conference 2013, International Equine Conference 2011 and 2012, Wild Horse Summit 2008, and Wild Horse Forum Material from these papers has been incorporated into this article. Professional consultation with professors, biologists, and government officials has also guided the preparation of the article. Many of the points presented here were also presented in my book The Wild Horse Conspiracy. [3] My extensive research on wild equids and other perissodactyls has resulted in scientific publications, including encyclopedic articles (e.g. Grzimek s, 2004), a species resume and action plan [4], and scientific journal articles, as well as many popular reports and articles. These have described the evolution, ecology, and conservation history and plans past, present, and future of perissodactyla species, including the endangered mountain tapir as well as the wild horses and burros of North America. Characteristics common to the order include a mesaxonic weight-bearing, odd-toed anatomy, possession of both upper and lower incisors permitting careful pruning of vegetation, and the possession of a post-gastric (in contrast to a pre-gastric, multi-stomach ruminant) digestive system. These and other shared characteristics place members of the horse, tapir, and rhinoceros families into similar ecological niches and roles. A knowledge of these characteristics affords insight concerning contributions to the North American ecosystems by both horse and burro lineages evolving here since the early Cenozoic Era ca. 60 MYA. This knowledge relates a wider variety of species, genera and families that share near-lying branches on the family tree of life expanding over time. And this knowledge has greatly aided me in composing this paper. 3. Findings and Discussion 3.1. Evidence of the Long-Term Presence and Evolution of Horses and Burros in North America Yukon Horse substantiates North American Origin of Modern Horse During the mid-1990s, horse remains were discovered by placer miners in the Yukon. They were well preserved in the permafrost and seemed to have died recently, yet proved to be approximately twenty-five thousand years old. Their rufous color, flaxen mane and solid hooves had the aspect of a typical, small and wiry mustang of the West. Based on external morphology, the specimen was identified as a Yukon horse, whose Latin name is Equus lambei. Intrigued, paleontologists conducted a genetic analysis of this specimen, which showed it to be one and the same as the modern horse: Equus caballus. Further independent analysis conclusively proved this. With this substantiation came a more widespread recognition of wild horses as returned native species in North America, since E. lambei was seen to be identical to E. caballus. [5] Carbon-14 datings of mitochondrial DNA (passed along the maternal line) have been meticulously analyzed by Dr. Ann Forsten [6] and have substantiated the origin of the modern horse in North America at 1.7 MYA (million years ago). According to Forsten: [t]he early branching-off time indicated by mtdna supports an origin of the caballoids [the horse branch of the horse family: Equidae] in the New World, and the fossil record suggests an even rather late dispersal to [the] Old World. [5] The fact that the Yukon horse is genetically identical with the modern horse reveals the latter to be one of the most deeply rooted and justifiable native species in North America. This native status is additionally substantiated by the species large geographic distribution upon this continent that is evident from the fossil record and the great variety of ecosystems in which it can adapt and live. Furthermore, though the modern horse traces back ca. 2 million years in its present form, it should actually be regarded as part of the continuous context of equid evolution that dates back at least 58 million years in North America. [7] More Recent Horses in North America A considerable body of evidence has surfaced concerning the more recent survival of the horse species in North America. Though the prevailing view maintains that the entire horse family died out around 10,000 years ago at the end of Earth's last major glaciation, evidence for horse presence from anywhere from a little over 7,000 years before present (YBP) to less than 1,000 YBP is too substantial to dismiss. [8] Among other lines of evidence, this comes in the form of fossil bones that have been agedated to more recent times, horse geoglyphs (ground [9] drawings) dated to about 1,000 years ago, and petroglyphs, or stone depictions. The FaunMap produced and published by the Illinois State Museum of Springfield, revealed a number of horse fossil datings within the post-pleistocene-pre-columbian period that occurred well after the time at which all members of the horse family are commonly believed to have disappeared from North America. Some of these are quite close to Columbus' discovery of America in [10] (See section 3.2.) Petroglyphs and Geoglyphs During the summer of 2002, I visited the austere White Mountains east of the towering, snow-capped Sierra Nevada near Bishop, California. The ancient White Mountains rise to over 13,000 feet at Boundary Peak and contain one of the most ancient life forms on Earth: the majestic, die-hard Bristlecone Pine, one of which has been dated to near 9,000 years of age. [11] Intrigued by this atmospheric region on the edge of eastern California and western Nevada, I went on to explore the desert valley just to the west of these mountains. Here I came upon some fascinating petroglyphs dating from

20 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): modern times to a few thousand years ago (Bureau of Land Management, Bishop California office, archeologist, pers. comm.). These artful designs had been painstakingly chiseled with hard tools on granite to form hypnotizing spirals, geometrical checkerboards, arrowheads, lances, strange anthrozooic (man-animal) figures, eagles, bighorn sheep with large, curved horns, and then, much to my amazement, a definite horse figure, without apparent rider, bridle, rope or saddle, rendered in simple rectilinear fashion but with proportions unmistakably those of a horse (see Figure 1). Judging from the brownish oxidation on the chiseling, this horse was not a recent addition to the ancient petroglyphs here. Scientific analysis of the patina of some of these petroglyphs has revealed ages up to 3,000 years. By visually comparing patina hues, I estimated this horse could be well over 1,000 years old. restricted the public from accessing the area and deciding for themselves (see Fig. 2). Figure 2. Horse geoglyph, Mojave Desert, southeast California, dated to [9, 66] about 900 years ago Fossil Evidence Figure 1. Horse petroglyph discovered by author west of White Mountains, eastern California. (Photo by author.) Joseph revealed geoglyphs depicting horses in the Mojave Desert near Blythe in southeast California. [9] These were also featured in another scholarly work as an eightmeter horse geoglyph pictured alongside a 25-meter human. [66] There are two horses among these several geoglyphs, collectively known as the Blythe Giants and representing the Earth Figure Tradition, which overlaps with the Great Basin Tradition. They were formed by removing stones of desert pavement to reveal lighter substrata, a process called intaglio, often associated with trails and dance circles formed by the pounding of human feet. They indicate that horses were held in high regard by Amerindians and in relatively recent times. The figures have been expertly dated by geologists from the University of California- Berkeley at 900 A.D. +/- 100 years and were first discovered by pilots from the U.S. Army Air Corps flying between Hoover Dam and Los Angeles in They are presently under the care of the Bureau of Land Management. As Joseph puts it: [t]his [figure] meant that someone in California knew enough about the horse to represent it on the desert floor centuries before the Spaniards re-introduced the animal to North America. [9] Though airline pilots and later observant investigators and writers have instantaneously recognized this figure as a horse, BLM officials claim it depicts a puma and have Shield Trap Fossil Site One of the most convincing series of finds comes from the Shield Trap fossil site located in Carbon County, Montana. [10] This is located on the east Pryor Mountain quadrangle (7.5 minute map) at Latitude degrees and Longitude degrees. Here four strata have been excavated. In Stratum I, part of the Late Holocene period, carbon dating from bone collagen samples (collagen consisting of the fibrous albuminoid component of bone) from two different horses has yielded precise edge dates of 1745 and 1270 YBP. In Stratum II, dating between 5490 and 2185 YBP, four different individual horse dates have been obtained. Three of these were again obtained from bone collagen, as well as from cartilage and other connective tissue types. These dated at 3190, 2675 and 2185 YBP. A fourth horse C-14 dating was done from charcoal associated with the fossil and produced the extraordinarily young date of 620 YBP, indicating the distinct possibility of horse presence in North America just over a century prior to Columbus's arrival in America. Though the latter was inconsistent with the date of the soil of Stratum II, it is not uncommon for earth movements or erosion to produce such mixing. If contamination can be ruled out, this fossil could go a long way toward proving the continuous occupation of North America from ancient times to the arrival of Europeans and the reintroduction of horses to North America. In Stratum III of the Shield Trap fossil site, seven C-14 datings again revealed horse presence at later dates than is recognized by mainstream paleontology. Stratum III extends from 7540 to 5490 YBP and is in the Middle Holocene period. C-14 dates obtained from charcoal from five horses yielded dates of 7540, 7540, 7540, 7165 and 7165 YBP, while the two horse fossils that were C-14 age dated from bone collagen yielded 7245 and 5490 YBP. The

21 8 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America 5490 YBP age dating is remarkable and substantiates a later survival of the horse in North America. Recently surfaced DNA discoveries in soils in Alaska renew our credence in horse presence in North America that is less than 8,000 years ago. [12] The horse fossil series at Shield Trap gives solid evidence for a continuous horse lineage from the time of the Great Die Out at the close of the Pleistocene to modern times, i.e., after the advent of Columbus and the European colonization of the Americas. The area around the site should be explored for additional fossils to further substantiate these findings Other Intriguing Fossil Sites Still another well-confirmed series of dating for a horse fossil comes from the Wolf Spider Cave in Colorado. These yield a date of 700 +/- 50 YBP and are clearly post- Pleistocene and pre-columbian and, again, not far before the arrival of Columbus in The Wolf Spider horse was dated by a professionally respected age-dater: Elaine Anderson. The Pratt Cave fossil site in Texas has a horse fossil that has been solidly dated to about ten times that of Wolf Spider, or /- 40 YBP. Many other sites yield horse fossils with scientific datings that indicate more recent horse survival (see Figure 3). These datings range from the High Holocene (HIHO) 0 to 450 YBP, the Late Holocene (LHOL) 450 to 4500 YBP, the Middle Holocene (MHOL) 3500 to 8500 YBP, and the more catchall, early Holocene/middle Holocene (EMHO) 3500 to 10,500 YBP. (See Appendix for a partial list of horse fossil sites) Presence of the horse in Pre-Columbian and Post- Pleistocene North America. The dates of 1,000 YBP or less, such as from the Shield Trap fossil site and from Wolf Spider and Little Box Elder caves, lend particular weight to the hypothesis that remnant horses survived to the time of the colonization of the Americas by Europeans. These remnant survivors could have interbred with European-derived horses, especially those escaped to the wild, the denominated mostrencos (Spanish for unclaimed ), or mustangs. This is an intriguing possibility that should be investigated using state-of-the-art genetic analysis and soon. To sum up, we have at least 50 different horse fossils from 23 different sites including in the East, the West, the North, and the South of the United States, as well as one in South America. The majority of these indicate a much wider horse distribution and at much later dates than is commonly accepted by mainstream paleontologists today (see Figure 3). Note:For Frank, 1999, see reference [65] for reference [9]: Joseph, 1999; for White, 2003, see reference [66]. Figure 3. Evidence for Pre-Columbian/Post-Pleistocene Horse Presence in North America In addition to the above, several horse fossils have been dated by association from the geological strata in which they were found and also fall within the post-pleistocene and pre-columbian period. They proceed from such disparate areas as: (1) the Spencer and Laatch Archeological Mount, Wisconsin; (2) Truman Reservoir, Missouri; (3) the Hopewell Burial Mound, Ohio; (4) prehistoric Indian kitchen middens of Arizona, ca. 3000

22 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): YBP, [13] and reportedly from (5) Winnemucca Lake Flats, just east of Pyramid Lake, Nevada. Apparently the horse fossil of Winnemucca Lake was discovered ca and dated to ca. 1,000 YBP by paleontologists at the University of Nevada, though later all trace and record of this horse fossil appear to have vanished under suspect circumstances (Holland Hague, pers. comm. and documents in his possession). The myth of the destructive, non-native horse is rapidly falling by the wayside, as people broaden their horizons in regard to the horse's deeply rooted North American presence and the many substantial contributions it makes to the native ecosystem. An exciting analysis of the DNA contained in the soils of permafrost regions of Alaska has recently come to light proving that both horses and mammoths were present in North America thousands of years later than previously thought. This is a comeback to what was espoused for decades by paleontologists, i.e., horse presence upon this continent to ca. 7,000 years ago. An international team of scientists assembled at Camp Stevens, Alaska, conducted this study, and its results are most encouraging for those who sense the horse's true belonging in North America. [12] Suggestive Amerindian Evidence for Surviving Native Horses Suggestive evidence for more recently surviving horses in North America is to be found in the cultural knowledge of native tribes handed down from generation to generation. Many of these oral histories have their origin in pre- Columbian times. In her book: In Plain Light: Old World Records in Ancient America, Gloria Farley [14] presents many illustrations indicating post-pleistocene, pre- Columbian horses in North America. These include petroglyphs similar to the one I discovered (Figure 1). According to historian Claire Henderson [15] of Laval University, Quebec: Traditional Dakota/Lakota (Sioux) people firmly believe that the aboriginal North American horse did not become extinct after the last ice ages and that it was part of their pre-contact culture. Though established anthropological opinion has it that the Plains Indians acquired horses in the early 1500s, as escaped or stolen horses from Spaniards in Mexico and the southwestern United States, the Sioux claim that the North American horse survived the Ice Age and provided the mounts for their ancestors long before Columbus's discovery of America. They maintain that these distinctive native ponies, in fact, continued to thrive on the North American prairies until the first half of the 1800s when the U.S. Government ordered them rounded up and destroyed to prevent Indians from leaving the newly created reservations. This massive slaughter is well documented. [16] Though much evidence backing the Sioux elders' claims was destroyed along with the horses, some suggestive evidence remains. For example, the Dakota/Lakota possess different words for horse, thus distinguishing between the sunkdudan, their own short-limbed horse, and the more long-legged horse brought by Europeans. Sioux elders whom Henderson consulted said that the aboriginal pony stood about thirteen hands high (52 inches) and had a straighter back, wider nostrils, and proportionately larger lungs than European horses. Accordingly, these ponies possessed even greater stamina and endurance than the nonetheless remarkable horses brought from Europe. Reports of shaggy hair and singed manes seem tarpan-like and were confirmed by Prince Frederick Wilhelm of Wurtemberg, Germany. [17] Henderson ended her plea with a call for the careful conservation of the few remaining Indian ponies. I would add to this a call for a comparative genetic analysis among germane horse populations to determine if unique North American characteristics, including mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA markers, exist. In this connection, a search for possible remains of slaughtered Plains Indian horses should be undertaken Suggestive Canadian Evidence According to Dr. Robert M. Alison, the complete extirpation of ancestral horse stock in Canada has yet to be confirmed and a bone found near Sutherland, Saskatchewan, at the Riddell archaeological site suggests some horses might have survived much later. The bone (Canadian Museum of Nature I-8581) has been tentatively dated at about 2,900 years ago. Another Equus species bone found at Hemlock Park Farm, Frontenac County, Ontario, dates to about 900 years ago. [18] In his conclusion, Alison unequivocally states:... the main lineage originated on the North American continent. Horses are therefore indisputably native fauna, despite a multiplicity of genotypic variations. In regard to the reintroduced horse from the Old World, he continues that...subsequent evolution elsewhere over a period of perhaps 8,000 years [does not] make them non-indigenous. He further observes that the inherent timidness of Canada's surviving freeranging wild horses, and genetic testing confirm [that] these animals do not derive from escaped domestic Block farm/ranch stock and that their shy behaviour is consistent with a long history of sustained freedom... [18] Dr. Alison, a biologist, urges increased protection and resource provision for Canada's last remaining wild horses as contributors to the native North American biodiversity and warns of their imminent disappearance. His testimony should greatly aid many Canadians, including those of the Canadian Wild Horse Foundation who, since July 2013, have been trying to pass a law in Parliament to legally protect the estimated less-than-1,000 wild horses still managing to survive in spite of strong persecution from ranchers and hunters in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Colombia The Asian Question An intriguing line of evidence that horses were present in America over 3,000 years before Columbus's arrival comes from Chinese writings. One manuscript dating from 2,200 B.C. indicates that the Chinese came to North America by sea at very early dates and described several animals

23 10 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America occurring in Fu Sang, or the Land to the East. [19] Their descriptions match certain North American animals, including bighorn sheep and horses resembling the appaloosa. Scholars question whether this involves horses that were earlier brought by the Chinese to North America and set loose, or horses that were already living here and that were subsequently captured and taken back to China. A distinctive gene (the LP, or Leopard Pattern) has been identified in the patchy-rumped appaloosa breed of horse, and research is now underway to trace its origin. Perhaps this will substantiate a uniquely North American horse characteristic. The idea that the appaloosa originated in China is based on certain appaloosan traits, mainly to do with coloration, that are found in China; however, Chinese horses are generally chunkier in build than North American appaloosas. This poses a question concerning how this relates to Amerindian beliefs about the stockier surviving native horses in North America (see section 3.2.4). Also of note: ca A.D. in the middle of China's Golden Age (A.D ) during the reign of T ang T aitsung (A.D ) and his successors Ching-Kwan and Yung-Hwui, Chinese explorers traveled to Ta Han, or Da Han, meaning the land of the Great Giants. [19] The New Book of Tang reports this land as rich in sheep (perhaps referring to the bighorn or Dall sheep) and horses (see also Harris Rees 2011 [20] ) The Case for the Burro In similar fashion to the wild horse, the burro (Equus asinus) can trace its not-far-removed ancestry back to North America; and in many parts of this continent, wild ass fossils testify to a very similar species occupying a very similar niche as the one reoccupied by burros during the past five centuries. MacFadden indicates that the ass branch of Equidae evolved in North America throughout the Hemphillian, Blancan, and Pleistocene periods, when one Equus mexicanus was clearly present. [2] Though the modern burro, or donkey, is currently considered as having originated from African wild asses (Equus africanus) and can and does produce fertile offspring with such, [21] it is most probably not significantly different from its North American ancestors. Indeed, one respected paleontologist believes that the African wild ass originally arose in North America. [22] And until recently both burro and African wild ass were considered to be the same species, namely Equus asinus which is still the case in many circles. Like the wild horse, when returned to North America, the burro readily adapts to an ecological niche that its not-so-distant ancestors filled for millions of years, particularly in the dry southwestern US and south into Mexico. The distinction between E. asinus and E africanus seems more a political than a sound biological one Two Hypotheses In summary, much evidence exists for horse presence in the Americas, especially North America, during the post- Pleistocene and pre-columbian period at dates scattered through the period beginning ca. 10,000 YBP and reaching very near to 1492 A.D. Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain these apparent anomalies: (1) A continuous lineage of horses survived in small remnants up until the reintroduction of European horses. When the latter escaped from or were released by the Spanish, other Europeans, or Amerindians, they thrived in the plains and southwestern deserts in the very land of their evolutionary origin as a species and reproductively intermingled with the already present, aboriginal horses. Populations of these aboriginal horses were absorbed by the greater influx of horses brought over by colonists, conquistadors, etc., many of whom derived from Spanish haciendas or Catholic missions. The distinctively American traits of certain wild horse populations lend support to this hypothesis as do depictions of un-mounted horses au naturel in geoglyphs and petroglyphs, some of which are dated hundreds of years before the arrival of Columbus (see Figures 1 & 2). (2) Horses disappeared from North America during the late Pleistocene ca. 10,000 7,000 YBP, but were brought back to North America by other cultures in pre-columbian times. Possible cultures for which evidence exists include: (i) Chinese immigrants in junk ships hugging the coasts of the Pacific Northwest; (ii) Scandinavians in long ships by way of Greenland and landing in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, and (iii) other cultures, such as the Celts from Wales or Ireland, or people in boats from southern France who came clinging to the southernmost edges of northern ice caps that had extended far to the south. The latter left their distinctive form of spears in the New World. Regardless which of these two options is true or whether a combination of such or some other option, after the Spanish brought horses, beginning with Hernan Cortez in the early 1500s, escapees and horses stolen by the Indians began to repopulate the Americas to a large degree. These could have reproductively intermingled with horses that had been brought by other cultures in earlier times and/or that were in North America originally. These horses likely possessed a superiority over other races, a hybrid vigor giving them survival advantages in the wild. This is all the more reason for preserving the mustang herds in the wild today. [23] 3.5. A Broader Perspective Since shortly after the dawn of our present Cenozoic Era, dating from the extinction of the dinosaurs ca. 65 MYA, the ascent of all three major extant branches of the horse family: zebras, asses, and caballine horses has taken place primarily in North America. [2] During the course of their long co-evolution, members of the horse family developed many mutually beneficial relationships with plants and animals. Indeed, both asses

24 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): and especially caballine horses can stake the claim to being among the very most ancient and long-standing members of the North American life community, more so than most other large mammals still surviving here. For example, among the bovid family both the bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and the bison (Bison bison) had their origins in Eurasia before crossing over the filter Bering Land Bridge, or isthmus, during the Pleistocene epoch 2-3 MYA. This is when oceans receded with the tie-up of global moisture during the ice ages. [24, 25] Thus, the latter two species are relative newcomers in North America when compared with the horse and other members of the horse family. Members of the deer family, Cervidae, including white-tailed and mule deer, elk and moose, arose in Asia during the Oligocene epoch MYA and did not arrive in North America until the Miocene epoch 23-7 MYA. They crossed over the Bering Land Bridge to occupy North America. Though their origin is more in the Old World, few authorities would question their native status in North America. Yet, many of these same persons will question members of the horse family in this regard in spite of the fact that all three extant branches of the Equidae: zebras, asses and caballine horses had their origin and longstanding evolution right here in North America, as an [18, 21] abundant fossil record proves. According to equid expert Dr. Hans Klingel,... there is evidence that all the extant equids [members of the horse family] evolved as species on the North American continent, and that Grevy's Zebra and the African and Asiatic wild asses were the first to cross the Bering Bridge in the early Pleistocene, whereas the remaining species came to the Old World only during the late Pleistocene. This would explain the much wider range of Grevy's zebra in Africa during the Pleistocene, i.e., before their major competitors, plains and mountain zebra, had arrived. It is feasible that similar situations existed with respect to African and Asiatic Zebras. [22] Also we need to consider that North America, Europe, and North Asia share many faunal and floral elements, over both their more recent and more distant evolutionary histories. And equids, including horses and asses, figure prominently in this sharing. [26] Though often separated by natural barriers, these three regions have experienced frequent faunal and floral interchanges during periods when barriers have either broken down, as through sea lowerings or freeze-overs, or been overcome by the versatile and persistent efforts of the animals themselves, including we humans The Ecology of Wild Horses and Burros in North America Wild horses and burros complement North America's life community in many direct and obvious as well as more subtle ways. This they do when permitted their natural freedom to move and interrelate over a sufficiently extensive intact habitat and time period. [3] Dietary Benefits, Building Soils, Dispersing Viable Seeds One obvious ecological relationship occurs between diet and habitat. Including today's extant zebras, asses and horses, all equids possess a caecal, or post-gastric, digestive system. This is found in other perissodactyl families, including tapirs and rhinoceroses, as well as other mammalian orders. Such a system enables equids to eat coarser, drier vegetation and, through symbiotic microbial activity, to break down cellulose cell walls to derive sufficient nutrients from the inner cell without overtaxing their metabolism. In drier regions, this often gives a distinct advantage over ruminant herbivores (those that have multiple stomach chambers and chew the cud) whose pregastric food processing requires expending considerably more metabolic energy and taking in more water. While it is true that equids must consume somewhat more vegetation, especially when dry and coarse, because of their less thorough extraction of nutrients from the food, this usually does not overly deprive ruminants, since much of what the equids consume would be of little or no value to them. As a matter of fact, the equids consumption of this coarser, drier vegetation can greatly benefit sympatric, pregastric (ruminant) herbivores, and energize and enrich the ecosystem as a whole. By recycling chiefly the coarse, dry grasses as well as other dry, withered herbs, forbs and bush foliage, the horses and burros expose the seedlings of many diverse species to more sun, water and air, thus permitting them to flourish. The latter can then be consumed by ruminants, as British ecologist R.H.V. Bell has so well demonstrated in his studies in the Serengeti. [27] Also of great importance is the contribution by wild equids of significant quantities of partially degraded vegetation in the form of feces deposited on the land. These droppings provide fodder for myriad soil microorganisms; the resulting fecal decomposition builds the humus component of soils, lending ecologically valuable texture and cohesiveness. As feces slowly decompose, they gradually release their nutrients over all seasons and, thus, feed the fungal garden that exists in soils, thereby increasing the soil's absorption of water a vital limiting factor in semi-arid and arid regions. To reiterate: equid feces are much more valuable to the health of soils than ruminant feces (cattle, deer, sheep, goats, etc.) precisely because they are not as decomposed when exiting the body and, so, lend more sustenance to decomposers and food webs that involve mutually sustaining exchanges among all classes of organisms. The latter include many diverse insects, birds, rodents, reptiles, etc. And, similarly, the less degraded feces of equids contain many more seeds that are intact and capable of germination and from many more types/species of plants when compared with ruminant grazers. Thus, the horses /burros wide ranging life styles greatly assist many plants in dispersing far and wide and, so, in filling their respective ecological niches. This enriches the food web and allows a greater diversity of animal species.

25 12 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America Topography Enhances Habitat Another germane point concerns the multiplication of ecological niche space that occurs in mountainous regions, with their accentuated topography. This creates greater opportunities for plants and animals to derive a living when compared with flatter regions, because such terrain provides more surface area on which to live. And perfect examples of such occur in the Great Basin s hundreds of mountain ranges where most of America s remaining wild horses have their legal areas. All this argues for higher government-assigned population levels, or Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs). As shown in studies of the endangered mountain tapir of the northern Andes inhabiting from 6,000 to 16,000 feet elevation; steeper, mountainous terrain provides for multiplication of niche space. [28-30] Behavioral Benefit Horses and burros aid myriad plant and animal species by their physical actions. As an example, breaking of ice with their hooves during winter freezes allows other animals to access forage and water. Many of these would otherwise perish. Similarly, they open trails in heavy snow or through heavy brush, allowing smaller animals to move about in search of food, water, mineral salts, shelter, warmer areas, mates, etc. A little recognized fact is that the wallowing habit of wild equids creates natural ponds whose impacted surfaces become catchments for scant precipitation or summer cloudbursts typical in the Great Basin. These provide a longer lasting source of water for a wide diversity of plants and animals. This can even help to create an intermittent riparian habitat for desert amphibians (e.g., the remarkable spadefoot toad, which seals itself into a dry, muddy cocoon for many years, reanimating when moisture is again present) and many other desert species. [31] Ephemeral plants that quickly flower and set seed, including many composites, are benefited from these catchments especially valuable in regions with clayey soils. Wild equids also locate water seeps through their keen sense of smell and enlarge these through pawing during critical dry periods of the year, even digging down to the sources at rocky fissures. This allows many other species to access water, species whose individual members would otherwise perish. For these and many other reasons, wild horses and burros should be treated as keystone species that contribute positively in a variety of ecological settings. Indeed, these and other equid species have been keystone species in North America for many millions of years Role as Prey Wild horses and burros are natural prey of native carnivores and omnivores, including puma, wolves, and brown and, to a lesser degree, black bears. In geologically recent times, this included the famous saber-toothed tiger and dire wolf. Unfortunately, these natural hunters have been targeted for elimination by humans. This has severely reduced the natural predators of deer, elk, moose, pronghorn, bison, bighorn sheep, and other prey species upon which these native predators have subsisted for thousands of generations and in a way that makes the prey populations more fit to survive over the long-term by taking the weak, infirm or those animals reaching the end of their life cycle. [32] The trophic cascades that natural predators cause in an ecosystem lead to the greater biodiversity and stability of such. With practically no break unto relatively present times, equid species have filled the ecological role of mediumand large-sized prey mammals in North America for over 58 million years. Today, the wild horse and burro are refilling their empty niches that have been only briefly unoccupied, paleontologically speaking, if at all. These niches are the product of countless generations of coevolution with native plants and animals. [31, 33] Today, it is highly questionable how individual western states such as Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming are allowing open season upon wolves, yet the officials of these same states will dishonestly claim that wild horses and burros have no natural predators Coevolution with Habitat To quote Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick and Dr. Patricia M. Fazio [5] : [t]he Key element in describing an animal as a native species is: (1) where it originated; and (2) whether or not it coevolved with its habitat. Clearly, E. caballus did both, here in North America. Various Amerindian tribes of the Great Plains and Prairies have a saying concerning the wild horses: The grass remembers them. [15] (See also Downer [34].) Wild horses and burros are perfectly suited to life in the remote, semi-arid regions of the West. One reason is obvious: their great mobility. With their long limbs and sturdy, single-unit (soliped) hooves, they are made for movement. In such semi-arid or arid regions as they inhabit, this extensive movement is vital for survival. In order to obtain enough forage, a wild horse must often roam over several square miles each day, selecting appropriate plants to prune; reaching a water hole may involve traveling over one hundred miles round trip in a grazing circuit of two or three days. During very hot, dry spells, a wild horse band must stay close to water, tanking up every day with approximately ten to twelve gallons for a mature horse. A spring can be shared by several bands. These form an orderly hierarchy for watering should more than one band arrive at a source at the same time, often late in the day. When melting snow or fresh cloudbursts paint the land with ephemeral water sources, wild horses can disperse into areas further away from perennial lakes and streams and to ephemeral sources. Here they employ their keen sense of smell in detecting even very small and hidden water sources. They can also negotiate rougher, steeper, and rockier terrain than domestic cattle. Through a hammer-like hoof action upon the ground, wild horses and burros aid vegetation by pushing seeds firmly into the soil where they may successfully germinate. In October

26 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): at the Wild Horse Summit in Las Vegas, Lakotan Sioux shaman Arvole Looking Horse of South Dakota described to me how wild horses are vital energizers that pound Earth's drum releasing energy from the inner planet and lending a musical rhythm that unifies diverse forms of life. Though criticized by their detractors for breaking the crusts, or desert pavement, of certain desert soils and, thus, accelerating wind erosion, when allowed adequate space and freedom, horses do not overwhelm an area. This is due to their sparse distribution and frequent movements and because, as most land-bound animals, they confine the majority of their longdistance displacements to trails. In certain areas, their compacting of soils helps these retain scant precipitation and dew. Especially in soils of higher clay content, this compaction can help retain moisture over longer periods of time. However, such modification of soils, occurring naturally with nearly any hoofed animal, can become detrimental to an ecosystem with overcrowding. As with any activity, what is an ecological positive in moderation can become a serious problem when overdone. This is certainly the case with the severe overgrazing that humanity has imposed upon the West, as upon similar arid and semi-arid regions throughout the world. This they have done by forcing hordes of cattle, sheep, goats, deer, yaks, and, yes, even horses or burros, etc., in unnaturally high concentrations upon the land. [35, 36] The problem is with the people, not the animals Man s Impact In the latter 1800s, many millions of cattle and sheep were forced by their human possessors into the vast, unfenced western regions. While a graduate student at the University of Nevada-Reno, I viewed archival photographs from the late 1800s of interior regions of Nevada such as the Reese River or Humboldt River hydrographic basins. These revealed extensive valleys filled with exuberant tussock grasses that were soon to be replaced by unpalatable sage and rabbit brush due to livestock overgrazing, as more recent photos in the same places conclusively prove. In effect, we humans raped the West, greatly setting back this formerly healthy, though dry, life community. [37] We ignored the already established life communities that in many places included the returned native or perhaps aboriginal--mustangs, and the possibility of harmonizing with such, while ignorantly imposing domesticated European species with a mind to maximizing production and profit in the short term. Today the arid terrestrial ecosystems our culture so invaded continue to be grazed by domestic livestock, though controls were imposed in the U.S. starting with the passage of the Taylor Grazing Act of Though somewhat alleviating the situation, this act assured that these lands would still be monopolized by livestock interests, thus, preventing the type of recovery that should and still can occur. [38] Dust, Gas and Effects of Livestock & Global Warming Place of Wild Horses Among the most insidious and globally harmful effects of domestic livestock hordes are the large quantities of dust blown into the air when the surface of soils are overly trampled and grazed. An article in Nature has revealed that dust load levels have increased by 500% above the late Holocene [eleven thousand years ago] average following the increased western settlement of the United States during the nineteenth century. This is largely attributed to the expansion of livestock grazing in the early twentieth century. [39] The dust causes an increase in various chemicals affecting the ph of water, productivity, and nutrient cycles. Such fine particles can settle on plants and plug their tiny pores, or stomata, through which they breathe. They can also lodge in the interstitial lung tissues of many animals, including humans, where they cause pulmonary diseases, including cancer. Though insufficiently recognized, the dusty factor is extremely damaging both to living organisms and the ecosystems they inhabit. The enormous quantities of methane, nitrous oxides, and other gases that are emitted through the digestive processes of domestic livestock constitute one of the major accelerators of life-threatening global climate change. [40] Clearly, civilized man s so-called progress upon planet Earth has abysmally failed to consider the ecological balances that assure life s continuance. Urgently required is an all-out effort to restore the natural diversity of plant and animal species appropriate to each of the Earth s bioregions, or ecological provinces, as to the Earth as a whole. But this is going to involve a serious willingness on the part of us humans to modify our life-influencing values and priorities, both individually and collectively. This will permit us to live in a truly harmonious manner, to act as good neighbors toward our fellow species. Here the horses and burros come into play. Their post-gastric digestive system does not emit as much gas as is the case with pregastric ruminant grazers, and permits them to greatly reduce dry, fire-prone vegetation over vast areas of the West without overtaxing their metabolism. Thus, they help to prevent catastrophic fires that global warming, or more to the point, human civilization s pollution of the atmosphere is causing. By drying out vegetation and provoking catastrophic fires rampant in western and southern North America, Australia, and much of the world the catchall global climate change threatens planetary life as we know it. This will especially be the case if global ocean currents stop circulating due to glacial and ice cap melting, etc. Annually a few to several million acres of forest, brush, and grassland have been going up in smoke in the United States alone, especially in the West and South. Never in historic times have we seen such destruction. But wild horses/burros can greatly help to save the day if allowed to play their own special role in reducing flammable vegetation, in building soils, in seed dispersal, in preventing catastrophic, soil-sterilizing fires, etc. They stand ready to counter imbalances brought on by human civilization and its contamination of the atmosphere. Much of this contamination is caused by hordes of domestic

27 14 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America livestock that mow down vast vegetated areas, their over concentration and resultant destruction of soils, and their production of flatulence and excrement in enormous proportions and intensities. Of course, there are also imbalances brought on by automobile exhaust, factory fumes, forest burning, peat oxidation in the Subarctic and Arctic, absorption of sunlight by darker seawater where once reflective ice caps stood and of sunlight by dark soot deposited on glaciers, etc. Millions of years of coevolution have made equids best equipped to prevent the catastrophic fires we are experiencing and to restore many of the ecosystems human civilization has either blindly or intentionally damaged. Let us not take these magnificent animals and what they have to offer for granted, for they are definitely a key part of the solution to all life s problems today. [41] Cheat Grass and Further Ruminations A commonly eaten food of wild horses in northern Nevada s Granite Range is Bromus tectorum, a.k.a. the [42, 38] infamous cheat grass that is taking over the West. The measured percentage frequency of this invasive species from Central Asia in the Granite Range habitat was 89.9%, while the percentage cover was 12% and the percentage use by wild horses was a full 27.3%. [38] Since cheat grass is a major contributor to fires in the West, perhaps wild horses as well as burros could be a major agent for reducing this flammable vegetation. Equids could prevent its reproduction by consuming this grass before it is able to set seed, in spring or early summer, depending on elevation. Most of the other species in Dr. Berger s table also become dry and flammable and are eaten by horses, thus reducing the fire fuel load in their occupied habitat. Wild horses and burros, as well as zebras, are very effective fire hazard reducers. They are more effective in eliminating cheat grass and other dry, flammable grasses and forbs than many ruminant grazers, and spread their grazing over larger areas, provided fences and other barriers do not overly confine them. They eat during 60% to 80% of the 24-hour day (ca. 15 hours), keeping constantly on the move and not camping on moist riparian or lacustrine meadow habitats, as do domesticated cattle put out to graze on the same land. Their droppings also build the humus content of soil to a substantial degree. This humus allows soil to gain more texture and retain more water, which dampens out fires; humus promotes more productive and bio-diverse plant and animal communities. [43] Because their feces are not as thoroughly degraded in the gut as those of ruminant grazers, they contribute more to food chains/webs, e.g., dung beetles to birds and lizards to higher trophic predators such as bobcats and eagles, etc. Equine feces aid the watershed by creating damper conditions, because the soil particles to which they reduce (micelles) retain more moisture, i.e., more water adheres to the surface area of these particles. Hence, ground water tables are replenished, feeding more seeps and springs more continuously. And upon these springs and seeps, many species of plants and animals depend. Of course, some fire is of benefit to an ecosystem, but fires that over-consume, over-extend, and over-intensify can set the evolution of a terrestrial life community way back and result in a very sterile environment that could take thousands of years of peace to recover Upper Incisors and Further Insights Insight can stem from the most basic of observations. For example, wild horses and burros possess both upper and lower incisors that permit them to selectively nip pieces of vegetation, such as grass or the leaves of bushes or trees. Major ruminant grazers, as for example cattle and sheep, do not have upper incisors and consequently can and do rip up plants by their roots more frequently with the action of their lower teeth and tongue against their hard upper palates. This often exposes soils to destructive wind and rain erosion, especially when too many of the ruminants are placed upon any given area of land. When over-crowded upon dry rangelands or marginal western brush or forest lands, livestock have and continue to cause enormous ecological degradation. Yet, the problem lies not so much with the animals themselves but with the humans who force them into habitats where they did not evolve and, more to the point, where they are not even allowed to harmoniously evolve and adapt to prevailing conditions through the time-honored process of natural selection and ecological balancing. [36] About three-fourths of the U.S. public lands are in seriously degraded condition due to overgrazing by domesticated livestock. The root of the problem lies not with the animals themselves but with we people who unnaturally manipulate and force them upon the land Mutualist Equids Helping to Provide Ecological Stability Though domesticated for a relatively short evolutionary time, horses and burros actually restore the wild equid element in North America. Here they refill herbivore niches that have been millions of years in the making. This restored diversification lends greater stability and balance to the ecosystem by increasing the complexity of the web of life. This interdependence involving equids has been documented in the Serengeti of Africa by Bell. [27] Bell observed how zebras eat coarser, drier grasses, etc., to expose to sunlight (allowing greater photosynthesis) finer, more delicate grasses, forbs, and other types of mature plants or their seedlings, thus, permitting their growth. The latter are more appropriate forage for wildebeest, Thomson's gazelle, topi, etc., that come in later seasons. A migratory sequencing of grazing pressures by these different species evolved over thousands of generations, and this is mutually beneficial to these species. A similar complementarity to that of the Serengeti evolved in North America and involves members of the horse family, including Equus caballus. As earlier explained, the latter originated and evolved upon this continent during the past few million years, as did its

28 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): preceding ancestry dating clear back to the Dawn Horse, Hyracotherium, a.k.a. Eohippus, of at least 55-million-year antiquity. The plains and prairies of North America were home to a dynamically balanced community of prairie dogs, bison, rabbits, pronghorn, deer, wolves, bear, foxes, coyotes, puma, diverse rodents, reptiles, and amphibians, raptor and song birds, snails and myriad insects and spiders, recycling microorganisms, etc. Over the many generations of their coevolution and in their complex feeding, decomposing, photosynthesizing, pollinating, seed dispersing, warning, and other interactions, these have fashioned a life community that is highly adaptable to the vagaries of climate, volcanic activity, unexpected oscillations in the sun's radiation, etc. In other words, the complex web of species as any true web has provided a beautiful resilience involving cyclings up and down for all species. With this greater variety of species, the natural vagaries that pose ever new and different survival challenges can be ridden out by the whole of life. In this respect, any individual, family, race, or species of life is like a rider of a bucking bronco, entered into the greater arena of evolving time and circumstance, in a rodeo whose rules are set according to natural and universal law. Understanding this allows us to understand the changing proportions of species present in North America over time as a response to changing conditions, both living and so-called non-living. [1] A salient example of harmonious coexistence occurs between deer, either white-tailed or mule, and wild horses. Deer mainly browse the leaves of trees or bushes while horses eat mainly grasses when available. In a healthy habitat, these deer and horses hardly compete because of utilizing different resources, and their interactions are often of mutual benefit. These benefits may be obvious or more subtle, direct or indirect. A similar harmony exists between mustangs and pronghorn an ancient and singular species that originated in North America, as did the horse. [44] The latter two have had a long time to learn to get along. Incidentally, the pronghorn seems never to have left North America Wild horses particularly thrive in North America's plains and prairies, but can adapt well further west of the Rockies in the Great Basin and west of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, as they did so well in earlier centuries. Burros adapt well in drier areas of North America particularly in the arid Southwest. Both equine species diversify and strengthen the community they inhabit in a variety of ways when allowed to achieve population stability over time and when not over-imposed upon by humanity. The process of natural selection must be allowed to operate sufficiently long for this to be the case. Then these equids create a greater variety of environmental conditions that make possible a greater variety of niches that can be occupied by the species that have coevolved with them and continue to evolve here on planet Earth. Begin large, powerful animals, equids can push their way through thickets of brush to form trails. Specifically, they open thick vegetative understories to light and air, and the more diverse exposures resulting from equine activities create conditions intermediary to the extremes of wind, temperature, and various soil conditions. This physically defines a greater variety of niches fillable by a more diverse array of species. When allowed to integrate into wilderness, the individual life histories of wild equids come to reflect natural oscillations, such as annual seasons and more long-term cycles. This they do along with the plants and animals who share their habitat. They harmoniously blend over time. As large animals who eat relatively large quantities and disperse their grazing and browsing activity over broad areas as semi-nomads, equids become the harvesters and the renewers over vast ecosystems, true to their keystone role. Their cropping of vegetation, often dry and coarse, reduces the possibility for major, soil-sterilizing fires (though ecologically healthy, minor ones still occur). This cropping sparks vegetative renewal, the re-budding of new and tender shoots of greater nutritional value, especially to ruminants whose digestive and metabolic systems are overtaxed by the coarse, dry vegetation that horses and burros can better handle. And, thus, the overall productivity of the land is annually increased, as studies prove. [45, 46] Also, as earlier noted, these equids disperse the seeds for successful germination of many of the plants they eat as well as fertilize the soils with their droppings. For their neighbors including the ruminant grazers, their presence is truly win-win. And this I have also observed to be the case with the threatened Greater Sage Grouse in places such as eastern Nevada s Triple B Complex of HMAs. Here these impressive lek-forming birds thrive alongside the spirited mustang bands Rewilding It is sometimes asserted that horses have not been part of the North American life community since their die-out at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, i.e., the last ice age (Larry Johnson, BLM National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board, pers. comm.). Even if they did die out (which seems untrue), and though (based on the fossil record) a great subsidence in their numbers did occur for a relatively brief time period of ca. 7,000-10,000 years, such a time period is not sufficient to undo the many mutualistic relationships horses established with native plants and animals. [5, 18] Furthermore, it is widely recognized that North America became species poor, or depauperate, in large mammals after the massive Pleistocene extinction that affected many other mammals, e.g., giant ground sloths, camels, rhinoceroses, saber-toothed tigers, dire wolves, tapirs, mammoths, and mastodons. In light of the foregoing, the return of the horse and the burro can be viewed as a restoration of the North American ecosystem, a resuming of an age-old continuum, a repair in the anciently evolved web of life in other words, a rewilding. [47-49] It is of vital importance that this rewilding take place today given the melting of the permafrost and so as to restore cool grasslands over extensive regions, including in Siberia. [50] Horses undoubtedly played a crucial role in building rich soils and in dispersing the seeds of many plant

29 16 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America species composing the Pleistocene savannas of North America and should be greatly valued as returned natives here. [47] Along with the burros, they are a different type of herbivore, possessing a post-gastric digestion, as contrasted with the ruminant digestion typical of the other major North American herbivores today Identifying the Problem and Its Solution Us! Livestock currently graze western public lands (BLM and USFS) in the equivalent of over a million year-round cattle; and big game interests promote unnaturally numerous deer herds for hunter harvest. [32, 38] Both ranchers and hunters seek to eradicate native predators, such as pumas, wolves, and bears. Combined with other pressures such as subdivisions, off-road vehicles, mining, and energy development, this has created an unbalanced situation in which ecological recovery is not possible. On top of this, global climate change is exacerbating the situation. The solution to our predicament lies, above all, in our becoming more sensitive toward and more knowledgeable about the ecosystems we inhabit and the more optimal potentials that both people and ecosystems can realize in unison History of Wild Horse and Burro Program and Public Lands in U.S Germane Facts and Figures In spite of the mandate of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, over 27 million of the admitted 53.5 million Herd Area (HA) acres have been zeroed out by the BLM and USFS in order to establish 26.5 million acres of Herd Management Areas (HMAs). [51] After reducing the original ca. 350 HAs to 180 HMAs on BLM land, Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs) have been developed that are in most cases non-viable in each given HMA. Most of these levels do not even meet the requirements for Minimum Viable Population of 150 horses/burros per herd commonly recognized by the BLM and fall far short of the 2,500 individuals recommended for a viable population by the Equid Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission. [52] Of the 180 greatly-reduced HMAs throughout the West, 130, or 72%, have AMLs of less than 150, and many of these are much less than 100, even numbering in the teens. According to the BLM s own substandard standard of 150, in California 19 out of 22 HMAs have non-viable AMLs; in Utah, 17 out of 21; in Idaho, 5 out of 6; in Montana, 1 out of 1 (6 of the original 7 HAs having been zeroed out); and in Nevada, 67 out of 90 of the remaining herds are similarly non-viable. [53] The Congressional Research Service reports that, in FY2005, forage eaten on BLM lands by livestock summed up to 6,835,458 Animal Unit Months (AUMs), contrasting with wild equine consumption of only 381,120 AUMs, or 5.6% that of livestock. On USFS lands, livestock devoured 6.6 million AUMs worth of forage, much of this in vital headwaters, while wild horses and burros got by on a meager 32,592 AUMs, or 0.5%. [54] These figures suggest that cattle, not equids, may be responsible for overgrazing, erosion, threats to native species, and other ecological problems seen in the arid West More Whittling Away, Some Needed Perspective BLM reduced the forage allocations, or animal unit months (AUMs), for wild equids by 17% between 2002 and 2005, citing drought conditions and ignoring: (a) wild equids' pre-adaptation to consume large quantities of dry flammable vegetation (a larger portion of which has resulted from global climate change) and, so, to reduce catastrophic fires, (b) their role in combating global climate change over the Earth's vast steppe or steppe-like biomes by preserving permafrost and/or establishing tundra grassland where permafrost has melted, [50] and (c) the fact that wild equids are capable of grazing much steeper and more rugged areas further away from water than cattle, which tend to concentrate their activities around water sources. Cattle and sheep grazing on U.S. Public lands contribute substantially to global climate change through their release of enormous quantities of methane gas and nitrogen oxides involved in ruminant digestion and through the widespread degradation of ecosystems, especially riparian. [40,55] Yet, the reduction for livestock in drought-stricken areas has been only 4% even though they greatly outnumber the wild equids that have been reduced by 17% and as of January 2014 about the double of this. Permittees only pay a small percentage of fair market value, at present amounting to about 9% to 12%, in order to graze their livestock on the public lands. This was reauthorized (March 2011) and remains (January 2014) at the minimum required by the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934: $1.35 dollars per AUM, a measurement that includes a cow and her calf (that have grown much larger due to genetic manipulation and selective breeding over the ensuing years since 1934). In 2005, the Government Accounting Office [56] reported that the government lost at least $123 million in order to prop up public lands livestock grazing, while the real costs have been estimated as at least one-half billion dollars per year when ecological damages are added in (Center for Biological Diversity [57] ). To put the situation in perspective, there are nearly 22,000 public lands ranchers in 13 western states, about one for each wild horse or burro allowed in the nationwide Appropriate Management Level. Further, the top 10% of the ranchers in the majority: large corporations, wealthy bankers, lawyers, doctors, politicians, etc., own over 65% of the livestock grazing in public [35, 37, 38, 55, 58] lands. Similarly, the cattle/sheep culture has played a major role in destroying indigenous Andean wildlife, especially the endangered mountain tapir, now reduced to only a few thousand individuals. [28, 29, 30] Enormous ecological damage has been done throughout the Americas, especially since the arrival of Europeans, but also before by some groups of Amerindians, although not to nearly the degree. In the U.S.

30 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): west of the Mississippi River, ca. 700 million acres of grassland have been degraded due to overgrazing by uncontrolled millions of cattle and sheep; yet left to their own devices, these animals would either harmoniously adapt or perish. In 1884, the region of today s western states held ca. 40 million cattle in addition to millions of sheep. It was not until 1934 that this cancerous destruction was in any way checked through the Taylor Grazing Act yet, unfortunately this act perpetuated the control of our public lands by private livestock interests. 4. Conclusions and Recommendations Wild horses form tight-knit stallion- and elder-maregoverned bands. Over time, each band searches out and establishes its own home range, which may cover hundreds of square miles on an annual basis in drier regions. The ecological mosaic that results among all such particular band home ranges in a given Herd Area/Territory and suitable adjoining areas prevents overcrowding and overgrazing. Once available habitat is filled, the horse/burro, as a climax species, limits its own population as density-dependent controls are triggered. In the immediate future, true wild- horse- and burrocontaining nature sanctuaries need to be established. Here livestock should be excluded or at least greatly minimized and wild horses or burros allowed to establish viable populations in the thousands, not mere hundreds or less than one hundred as currently proposed. These fairly populated sanctuaries will be viable in the long-term. They will preserve the vigor of the horses and burros they were designed to conserve Reserve Design Basics of Reserve Design To address these problems, I present a workable solution. This will be to restore wild equids in their legal Herd Areas and Territories as outlined in the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, and, hopefully, in all ecosystems where they play a crucial role. Let us plan a modus operandi by which to reestablish wild equid herds at long-term-viable population sizes within long-term-viable habitats, adequate in all respects as to size, water provision, food availability, shelter, mineral requirements, and elevational gradients. The latter will allow for seasonal migrations to higher areas during the summer and to lower areas during the winter. In these areas, wild equids will be treated as the principal presences, as the Wild Free- Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 intended; they will no longer be given secondary or even last priority by the very authorities whose duty is to uphold not subvert the federal laws protecting them. [59-61] Employing principles of Reserve Design, the following directives will serve to guide us: (a) Let wild horses/burros reoccupy their full legal Herd Areas wherever possible and in no case less than 75% of the original legal area. And where a reduction in equid occupation of the original Herd Areas/Territories is deemed necessary, there must be a compensatory acquisition of wild equine habitat of equal or greater value as judged by independent wildlife ecologists with particular knowledge of wild horse and burro requirements. To accomplish this reoccupation, authorities should employ Codes of Federal Regulations and to reduce or curtail livestock grazing within legal Herd Areas and Territories. Also, they should authorize the purchase of grazing permits, base properties, and water rights that are conflicting with the sound establishment of the legal wild horse and burro herds. All Implied Federal Water Rights that come with the legal Herd Areas or Territories will be protected and where necessary restored. Sections 4 and 6 of the WFHBA will also be exercised in order to secure complete, viable, long-term habitats for long-term viable wild horse and burro populations, as is the true intent of the Wild Free- Roaming Horses and Burros Act of (b) Employ natural barriers or, where such do not exist, semi-permeable, artificial barriers, where possible and necessary, in designing each wild horse/burro Herd Area/Territory as the true sanctuary the law intends. These barriers will act as limits, or impassable boundaries, to wild equid expansion. These will contain each wild equid population within its legal domain, as legally expanded where necessary to provide long-term-viable habitat and to keep wild horses/burros out of harm's way, i.e., out of areas where they would be in clear and unavoidable conflict with human activities. Here I particularly recommend the employment of special Strieter-Lite light reflectors that prevent nighttime collisions of animals with automobiles wherever major roads or highways transect the wild equid Herd Areas/Territories. Also, intelligent use of drift fences can serve to effectively contain horses at strategic passes, etc. But none of the foregoing shall be used to restrict the wild horses/burros within their large, viably sized and complete habitats, as shall be knowledgeably and sensitively defined well in advance. (c) Design and employ buffer zones around the wild horse Herd Areas/Territories. Here a gradual tapering off of wild horse or burro presence would occur through the implementation of discouragements to their transiting into areas where danger exists for them, such as in farms or cities. This may involve the use of what wildlife managers term adverse conditioning that need not be overly harsh to be effective. The effectiveness of buffer zones depends to a high degree on public education, on working agreements with the people who live in or around each Herd Area/Territory. These agreements will foment winwin relationships for both wild equids and people. Locals would monitor and protect the herds and their habitats and derive benefit for doing this as well as from eco-tours, and would be encouraged not to feed the equids. These buffer zones would be established according to principles of Reserve Design and in a positive manner respecting the wild equids. (d) Allow each wild horse/burro herd to fully fill its

31 18 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America ecological niche space within each given legal Herd Area/Territory bounded by natural or where necessary artificial barriers, and by buffer zones. Then allow each specific herd to self-stabilize, or auto-regulate, its population, within this area. Such auto-regulation can happen if we humans allow. Both horses and burros are climax species, which is to say, members of the climax successional sere, or stage, and do not expand out of control to destroy their habitat and ultimately themselves. In other words, each band within a herd population is usually governed by a lead stallion (patron). He watches out for and defends the band and does most of the breeding. A usually older, lead mare also aids in this role. This mare is very wise as to where the best foraging, watering, mineral procurement, sheltering areas, etc., are located. She leads the band along paths uniting these habitat components. These include longer seasonal migratory routes between higher summering and lower wintering habitats. Both patron and lead mare socially inhibit reproduction among younger members of their band. Each band establishes a home range within and/or outside the legal Herd Area/Territory, according to its survival necessities. And all of the bands taken together form a mosaic of somewhat overlapping but generally distinct home ranges. Given enough time to work out their individual and collective differences, wild horses reach a more stable state in relation to their bounded habitat. They do not overpopulate and destroy this habitat but rather autolimit, achieving a balance with the natural resources of their Herd Area/Territory. Of crucial importance here is the optimal size of habitat that should be made available to each wild equid herd in order to provide for an optimally viable population. This will depend upon the productivity and carrying capacity of the land. To be minimally viable and considering today s political constraints, I recommend that each herd contain at least 500 and to be optimally viable for long-term survival over the generations, each herd should be well over 1,000 interbreeding individual animals and this should be the long-term goal. Remember that the IUCN SSC Equid Specialist Group recommended a minimum size of 2,500 individuals per herd in order to achieve long-term viability for a wild equid population, and a minimum size of 500 for a carefully managed domesticated population. [52] Again, equids possess means of limiting their own reproductive capacities, either socially or biologically, when resources, including food, water, and space, become limiting. This involves stress and hormonal factors. [62] (e) In order to realize healthy, balanced wild horse/burrocontaining ecosystems in each of the Herd Areas/Territories, as full a complement of plant and animal species, each filling its specific place and role, should be allowed. Wherever possible, this should include large carnivores/omnivores native to the region in question, such as puma, wolf, and black or brown bears. These will provide a natural control on the equine populations, [63] one that will act through natural selection to make any given population more fit, or toned, for survival in the wild and more adapted to its particular ecosystem. And the refuge should also include as large a variety of other large, medium, and small herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous species as possible: rabbits, mice, prairie dogs, foxes, coyotes, deer, pronghorn, beaver, skunks, weasels, raptor birds such as hawks and eagles, scavenger birds such as vultures, song birds, and myriad lizards, snakes, rodents, amphibians, mollusks, and insect species. This animal complex will, of necessity, be based upon a similarly diverse collection of plant species, including a complex mixture of grasses, herbs, shrubs, and trees, tending as much as possible to the autochthonous, or native, and supportive of a complete series of inter-complementary animal pollinators, seed dispersers, decomposers, species related as predator-prey, etc. Thus, the safeguard of greater biodiversity in the web of life will be allowed to make a comeback and be further enhanced Reproductive Inhibitors and Reserve Design In March 2008, BLM officials were considering castrating wild stallions in their legal Herd Areas to prevent their reproduction. I pointed out that, in addition to being cruel, this could precipitate inbreeding, because fewer stallions would actually fertilize the mares. Since horses naturally form harems, the dominant stallion of each does the majority of the breeding; although a certain percentage of the breeding may be done by subdominant stallions. [42] Given castration, the male contributors to the gene pool would be greatly reduced and the specter of inbreeding would loom, as survival prospects for any given population would grow dimmer. Also, castration has caused stallions to be socially ostracized, attacked by kicking, and generally marginalized from the wild horse social groups in which they would otherwise be accepted (pers. obs.). BLM plans to use aggressive birth control to prevent the expansion of the wild horse/burro populations that remain. Chief among the drugs to be used is PZP (porcine zona pellucida). This injected drug covers the eggs, or ova, of mares, preventing sperm from fertilizing them. It is experimental, however, and has some very questionable effects upon the horses themselves, both individually and collectively. For example, its effect leads to mares repeatedly recycling into estrous, thus stimulating stallions to repeatedly mount the treated mares all to no avail. This frustrating situation causes much stress among individuals of both sexes and a general disruption of the social order, both within bands and, as a consequence, within the herds themselves. Other unintended consequences of PZP are out-of-season births occurring after PZP s effect has worn off after a year or two. These births have been observed during the colder late autumn and winter seasons (e.g., Pryor Mountain herd by G. Kathrens of The Cloud Foundation); and their untimeliness causes suffering and death among both foals and their mothers. The current experimental use of PZP delays the fertility of thousands of mares dispersed

32 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): throughout many wild horse herds. It is another way BLM is taking the wild out of wild horses. Along with the very low Appropriate Management Levels BLM has established, this is proving yet another tool for management for extinction. Both out-of-season births and accelerated, unfruitful estrus cycling undermine wild horses ability to survive in the harsh climate of the Pryor Mountains and similar places throughout the West, by causing social instability both within and among the bands, etc. Long-time roundup contractor, Dave Cattoor confirms some of Kathrens alarming observations, particularly out-of-season births and the excess stress on mares and the stallions that repeatedly try to impregnate the mares in vain. The injection of GnRH is a hormonal way of preventing reproduction in mares, but is observed to produce serious suffering and aberrations, just as it does with women, in whom it has also been linked to cancer. It is also being considered for use with the wild equids. Another inhumane way involves extraction of ovaries, which has been experimentally employed on the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge s wild horses, among which it has caused terrible suffering and death. The answer to the wild horse crisis is not to be found in manipulations that are contrary to the caring spirit and wisdom of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971 and its minimal feasible level of management tenet (Section 3a). Rather, the solution is to be found in proper wild land Reserve Design. As detailed above, such involves natural and/or artificial, semi-permeable barriers, natural predators, as well as community-involving buffer zones, among other tools, including allowing the horses/burros to naturally fill their niche in any given area. Future wild horse/burro reserves will contain complete habitats, large enough to support long-term-viable wild horse/burro populations. Figure 4. Regions for Reserve Design (see text for names of areas 1-23) Regions for Reserve Design (See Figure 4, map) Some of the major regions where Reserve Design should be implemented are: (1) Southeast Oregon, including Steens Mountain and Alvord Desert with its Kiger mustangs. (2) Northwest Nevada with its Calico Complex and High Rock Complex of wild horse and burro Herd Areas. (3) Northeast California including Twin Peaks,

33 20 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America Coppersmith, New Ravendale, and Buckhorn Herd Areas. (4) Northern Nevada and the Owyhee Desert complex of wild horse Herd Areas and Territories. (5) North Central Nevada including the Clan Alpine wild horse Herd Area and adjacent Herd Areas such as the Desatoya, New Pass, and Mount Airy. (6) Eastern Nevada including the Triple B Complex of wild horse Herd Areas and Territories. (7) Southeastern Nevada including the Caliente Complex of wild horse and burro Herd Areas. (8) Southwest Nevada and adjacent parts of Eastern California including Montgomery Pass wild horse Territory, Monte Cristo and Silver Peaks wild horse Herd Areas, and Marietta Wild Burro Range (BLM). (9) Central Southern Nevada centered on the National Wild Horse Range (Nellis Air Force Base). (10) Panamint-Centennial-Slate Range Wild Burro Herd Areas complex, Southeastern California. (11) Southeast California wild burro Herd Areas, including Clark Mountain. (12) Southern California wild horse and burro Herd Areas including Coyote Canyon. (13) Southern Nevada wild horse and burro Herd Areas/Territory including Spring Mountain. (14) Western Arizona wild burro and wild horse Herd Areas including Lake Mead burros and Cibola-Trigo and Cerbat wild horse herds. (15) Southwestern corner of Arizona and adjacent areas of Southeastern California for wild burros. (16) Southwestern Utah bordering on Nevada including Sulphur wild horse herd. (17) Western Utah wild horse Herd Area south of Great Salt Lake and the town of Tooele. (18) Southern Wyoming complex of wild horse Herd Areas, including Adobe Town-Salt Wells Creek Complex and White Mountain and Red Desert herds. (19) North Central Wyoming and Southern Montana including Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Sanctuary and McCullough Peak wild horse Herd Area on NPS land. (20) Northwestern Colorado including Sand Wash Basin wild horse Herd Areas, including West and East Douglas wild horse Herd Areas. (21) New Mexico wild horse and burro Herd Areas/Territories, including Jicarillo, Bordo Atrevesado, and Carracas Mesa herds. (22) Central Idaho wild horse Herd Areas/Territories. (23) Restored Montana wild horse Herd Areas/Territories in the southwestern part of this state. The above and additional important regions should be carefully examined as concerns the major requirements of Reserve Design with a mind to its practical implementation. This should happen immediately in order to prevent the further demise of America s last wild horse and burro herds. This program would seek to restore the herds to naturally and ecologically integrated and truly viable population levels. In conjunction with this, other private and public lands would become involved, as is consistent with Sections 4 and 6 of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, among other legal mandates, e.g., the Multiple Use and Sustainability Act, the National Historical Preservation Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. Wild equine herds occurring in other states not on BLM and USFS lands, such as the Lakota wild horse-occupied areas in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, would also be included in this program. Remnant lineages of wild horses and burros that are being maintained on private sanctuaries would be called upon to restore zeroed-out Herd Areas/Territories wherever possible. These would include the Wild Horse Sanctuary near Shingletown, California, the Return to Freedom Sanctuary near Lompoc, California, the ISPMB wild horse sanctuary near Lantry, South Dakota (preserving the White Sands and Gila mustang herds, etc.), the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary, South Dakota (preserving Spanish mustangs), [64] the Lifesavers Wild Horse Sanctuaries near Lancaster and Twin Oaks, California, the Coyote Canyon wild horse remnants maintained by various individual families in southern California, the Dreamcatcher s wild horse and burro sanctuaries of northern California, the Horse Power wild horse and burro sanctuary, and the Wild Horse Spirit Sanctuary, both located in Washoe Valley, western Nevada. Other sanctuaries would also be contacted throughout the U.S. Especially important in this regard would be the longterm holding facilities that have been contracted to care for thousands of wild horses and burro that have been displaced from their legal Herd Areas (BLM) and Territories (USFS) throughout the West. As of January 2014, these number ca. 55,000 formerly wild and free-living horses and burros. They represent many unique lineages that have adapted over many generations to the unique ecosystems they inhabited. Wherever possible, these should be returned to their legitimate Herd Areas/Territories or to areas that are ecologically similar. This would alleviate both the horses and burros as well as the U.S. taxpayer and above all restore the long-term viability of the wild herds and their respective habitats. Finally, the United States government could and should collaborate with its neighboring nations of Canada and Mexico in restoring wild horses and burros at viable population levels where appropriate Final Thoughts [21, 67-70] Worldwide, the horse family is declining rapidly. Restored to its ancestral freedom on the North American continent, any population of horses or burros, in fact, returns to its more ultimate place of origin and longstanding evolution. Here these animals should be allowed to regain long-term-viable population levels in regions of adequate size and containing complete habitats. Thus, whether horse or burro, their true vigor as a species will be restored. And in the larger sense, this restoration will be for the very ancient and magnificent horse family itself.

34 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): Wild horses and burros should be declared a UNESCO World Heritage, as well as the national heritage species they have already been, in fact, proclaimed by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of Wild horses genetics combine early Spanish horses of Andalusian stock (a combination of Berber, Arab, and Northern European races) with horses from all over the world. These include the Bashkir curlies brought over by Russians to the Northwest Pacific. In fact, the hardy wild horses and burros have much the same diversity and hybrid vigor as American people. Thus, we Americans can truly say they are a parallel reflection of ourselves. Living in the natural world, they are submitted to the rigors of natural selection that adapt them to more constant as well as to changing environmental conditions. Thus, many adaptive traits emerge that do not manifest in captivity, where genetic diversity, particularly among males, is greatly reduced (since even fewer males are chosen to breed). One great example concerns their remarkable hoofs. These are kept in perfect, unshod condition on wild, rocky terrain and greatly assist in the circulation of blood through a sort of pumping action involving the suction cup effect of the hoof s bottom as the horse walks or runs. Equids living in the wild become their own person, so to speak a truly quickened and striving presence! When people dismiss them as misfits here in North America, their cradle of evolution, they prove the old saw: There are none so blind as they who will not see. Acknowledgments The author wishes to express his gratitude to the following individuals and organizations that have helped with the preparation of this article: Andean Tapir Fund/Wild Horse and Burro Fund, The Cloud Foundation, International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros, Dr. Mary McNichols, Mr. John Brian, biologist T. Horton, and for editorial assistance, Ms. Susan Madden and Mr. T. Horton. Appendix Partial List of Horse Fossil Sites (See Section for meaning of abbreviations.) 1. Ventana Cave, Arizona: two horses from LHOL; one horse from MHOL; one horse from HIHO; 2. Awatovi, Arizona: one horse from HIHO; 3. Fort Davy Crocket, Colorado: one horse from HIHO; 4. Kin Tl'iish, Colorado: one horse from LHOL; 5. Long House, Colorado: one horse from LHOL; 6. Merina, Colorado: one horse from LHOL; 7. Cemochechobee, Georgia: one horse from LHOL; 8. Calf Island, Massachussetts: one horse from HIHO; 9. Blacktail Cave, Montana: one horse from MHOL; 10. Hoffer, Montana: one horse from LHOL, two horses from HIHO; 11. Amahami, North Dakota: one horse from LHOL; one horse from HIHO; 12. Navajo Reservoir Site LA 3430, New Mexico: two horses from LHOL; 13. Ft. Randall Historic Site, South Dakota: one horse from LHOL; 14. H.P. Thomas, South Dakota: one horse from HIHO; one horse from LHOL; 15. Lubbock Lake, Texas: one horse from EMHO, one horse from MHOL; one horse from LHOL 16. Site 45AS80, Washington: one horse from LHOL; 17. Chief Joseph Dam Site 450K2, Washington: one horse from HIHO, one horse from LHOL; 18. Chief Joseph Dam Site 450K258, Washington: one horse from LHOL, two horses from HIHO; 19. Site 48UT370, Wyoming: one horse from MHOL. Two other sites for which evidence exists for more recently dated horse fossils are: one site near Rock Springs, Wyoming (early post-columbian but still with an intriguing fossil horse skeleton), 429 YBP; and the Horsethief Cave fossil site, also in Wyoming, that has produced a horse femur dated by thermoluminescent means to 3124 YBP. Similar records have been reported from Canada and parts of Mexico, as well as Central and South America. References [1] Simpson GG. The Story of the Horse Family in the Modern World and through Sixty Million Years of History. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press; Note Fig. 24 and whole work. [2] MacFadden BJ. Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equadae. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press; [3] Downer CC. The Wild Horse Conspiracy: CreateSpace; [4] Downer CC. Status and action plan of the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque). In: DM Brooks, RE Bodmer, and S Matola, ed. Tapirs, Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, U.K.: IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group; [5] Kirkpatrick JF; Fazio PM. FP. Ecce Equus. Natural History [6] Forsten A. Mitochondrial-DNA timetable and the evolution of Equus: comparison of molecular and paleontological evidence. Ann Zool Fennici. 1992;28: [7] MacFadden BJ. Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution of the Family Equidae. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press; [8] Jones SE. Were There Horses in the Americas before Columbus? Ancient American. 2012;16(95):2-3. [9] Joseph F. Giants of the California desert. Ancient American. 1999;4(27): [10] FaunMap. Springfield, Illinois: Illinois State Museum; 2004.

35 22 Craig C. Downer: The Horse and Burro as Positively Contributing Returned Natives in North America [11] Cohen MP. A Garden of Bristlecones: Tales of Change in the Great Basin. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press; [12] Haile J, Froese DG, Macphee RD, et al. Ancient DNA reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior Alaska. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009;106(52): [13] Groves CP. Horses, Asses and Zebras in the Wild. London, U.K.: Newton Abbot Publishers; [14] Farley G. In Plain Sight: Old World Records in Ancient America: Isac Pr; [15] Henderson C. Statement of Claire Henderson in Support of North Dakota Senate Bill 2278; 1991 ( February 1). [16] Ryden H. America's Last Wild Horses, 30th Anniversary Edition. New York, NY: The Lyons Press; [17] Wilhelm PF. First journey to North America in the years 1822 to 1823: Archives, South Dakota Historical Society; [18] Alison RM. Canada's Last Wild Horses Substantiates native place of wild horses in North America through use of evolutionary evidence and declaims against their insensitive and rash elimination in Canada. [19] Kuchinsky Y. Frank Gilbert Roe on very early Indian horses [20] Harris-Rees C. Chinese Sailed to American before Columbus [21] Duncan P. Zebras, asses, and horses: An action plan for the conservation of wild equids. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Species Survival Commission, Equid Specialist Group; [22] Klingel H. A comparison of the social organization of the equids In: Proceedings: University of Wyoming Laramie ed. Symposium on the Ecology and Behavior of Wild and Feral Equids; [23] Luis C, Bastos-Silveira C, Cothran EG, Do-Mer-Oom M. Iberian origins of New World horse breeds. J Hered. 2006;97(2): [24] Vaughn TA. Mammalogy. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Co.; [25] Lindsay E, Opdyke ND, Johnson N. Pliocene dispersal of the horse Equus and late Cenozoid mammalian dispersal events. Nature. 1980;287: [26] MacFadden BJ. Fossil Horses: Systematics, Paleobiology, and Evolution in the Family Equidae. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press; Figure 7.7. [27] Bell RHV. The use of the herb layer by grazing ungulates in the Serengeti. In: Watson A ed. Animal Populations in Relation to their Food Source. Oxford, U.K.: Blackwell Science Publications; 1970: This elaborate study shows how another equid, the Zebra, complements a variety of grazers, including the Thompson s Gazelle and the Wildebeest by eating coarser, drier grasses. The removal of these allows other types of vegetation to grow. The study describes the movement patterns of the zebras in relation to the other herbivores and how this relates to an elaborate natural system that has evolved over thousands of generations in Africa. Undoubtedly, a similar system existed between equids in North America and other sympatric species of herbivores. Many of the observations of this elegant study apply to the wild horses and burros in North America, including the West, for the horse, far from being a misfit, restores and enhances the native North American ecosystem, and given the right setting, much the same can be said of the burro. [28] Downer CC. The mountain tapir, endangered "flagship" species of the high Andes. Oryx. 1996;30: [29] Downer CC. Status and action plan of the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque). In: DM Brooks, RE Bodmer, and S Matola, ed. Tapirs, Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. Gland, Switzerland, and Cambridge, U.K.: IUCN/SSC Tapir Specialist Group; [30] Downer CC. Observations on the diet and habitat of the mountain tapir (Tapirus pinchaque). Journal of Zoology, London. 2001;254: [31] Oxley R, CC Downer. Deserts. In: Hare T, ed. Nature Worlds MacMillan Reference. London, U.K.: Duncan Baird Publishers; 1994:116. [32] Baker R. The American Hunting Myth. New York, NY: Vantage Press; [33] Downer CC. Wild and free-roaming horses and burros of North America: Factual and sensitive statement--how they help the ecosystem. Natural Horse. 2005;7(3): [34] Downer CC. Wild Horses: Living Symbols of Freedom. Sparks, NV: Western Printers and Publishers; [35] Rifkin J. Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Beef Culture. New York, NY: Dutton; [36] Downer CC. Overgrazing is by humankind. Bulletin of the Theosophy Science Study Group. 1987;25(5,6): [37] Jacobs L. Waste of the West: Public Lands Ranching. Tucson, AZ: Arizona Lithographers; [38] Wuerthner G, Matteson M. Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West. Washington, DC: Island Press; [39] Neff JC, et al. Increasing eolian dust deposition in the Western United States linked to human activity. wwwnaturecom/naturegeoscience; [40] de Haan C, Steinfeld H, Rosales M. Gerber P, Wassenaar T, Castel V. Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options. Rome, Italy: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; [41] Williams AR. Horse Power. National Geographic. 2012:25. Tells how horses are being used to restore degraded ecosystems in many countries of the world. [42] Berger J. Wild Horses of the Great Basin: Social Competition and Population Size. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; [43] Ricklefs RE. Ecology, 2nd Edition. New York: Chiron Press;

36 American Journal of Life Sciences 2014; 2(1): [44] Meeker JO. Interactions between Pronghorn Antelope and Feral Horses in Northwestern Nevada. MS thesis in Wildlife Management. Reno, NV: University of Nevada-Reno; [45] Fahnestock JT, Detling JK. Plant responses to defoliation and resource supplementation in the Pryor Mountains. J Range Management. 1999;52: [46] Fahnestock JT, Detling JK. The influence of herbivory on plant cover and species composition in the Pryor Mountain Wild Horse Range. Plant Ecology. 1999;144: [47] Stozenburg W. Where the wild things were. Conservation in Practice. 2006;7(1): [48] Donlow J, et al. Rewilding North America. Nature. 2005;436(7053): [49] Martin PS. Twilight of the Mammoths: Ice Age Extinctions and the Rewilding of America. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; [50] Zimov SA. Pleistocene park: return of the mammoths' ecosystem. Science. 2005;308: [51] Response to the Government Accountability Office's Report, "Bureau of Land Management: Effective Long-Term Options Needed to Manage Unadoptable Wild Horses": Animal Welfare Institute; [52] Duncan P. Zebras, Asses, and Horses: An Action Plan for the Conservation of Wild Equids. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Species Survival Commission, Equid Specialist Group; [53] Response to the Government Accountability Office's Report, "Bureau of Land Management: Effective Long-Term Options Needed to Manage Unadoptable Wild Horses": Animal Welfare Institute; 2008:22. [54] Response to the Government Accountability Office's Report, "Bureau of Land Management: Effective Long-Term Options Needed to Manage Unadoptable Wild Horses": Animal Welfare Institute; 2008:13. [55] Hudak M. Western Turf Wars: The Politics of Public Lands Ranching: Biome Books; [56] U.S. Government Accountability Office. Livestock Grazing: Federal Expenditures and Receipts Vary Depending on the Agency and the Purpose of the Fee Charged. Washington DC: Doc. # GAO ; September the Federal Grazing Program. Tucson AZ.:2002. [58] Rogers P, and LaFleur J. Cash Cows: Taxes Support a Wild West Holdover that Enriches Ranchers and Degrades the Land. San Jose Mercury News. San Jose, CA; Nov. 7, [59] Downer CC. Proposal for Wild Horse/Burro Reserve Design as a Solution to Present Crisis. Presented at BLM Wild Horse and Burro Workshop (06/14/2010) and National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board Meeting (06/15/2010). Denver, CO; [60] Downer CC. Proposal for wild horse/burro reserve design as a solution to present crisis. Natural Horse. 2010;12(5): [61] Peck S. Reserve Design. Planning for Biodiversity: Issues and Examples. Washington, DC: Island Press; 1998: [62] Rogovin KA, Moshkin MP. [Autoregulation in mammalian populations and stress: an old theme revisited]. Zhurnal Obshchei biologii. 2007;68(4): (in Russian). [63] Mitchell J. Nature May Be Limiting Wild Horse Population. Reno Gazette Journal. Reno, NV; July 6, [64] Hyde DO. All the Wild Horses: Preserving the Spirit and Beauty of the World's Wild Horses. St. Paul, MN: Voyageur Press; [65] Frank, See Joseph. [66] White R. Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind. New York, NY: Abrams; [67] Moehlman PD (ed). Equids: Zebras, Asses, and Horses: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Equid Specialist Group, IUCN (The World Conservation Union). Gland Switzerland: [68] Hack MA; S. King. Equid Bibliography. IUCN/SSC Equid Specialist Group. IUCN (The World Conservation Union). Gland Switzerland: [69] University of Wyoming. Proceedings of the Symposium on the Ecology and Behavior of Wild and Feral Equids. 1979; Laramie WY; Sept. 6-8, [70] MacDonald CR. Wild Burros of the American West -- A Critical Analysis of the Status of Wild Burros on Public Lands Available at and [57] Center for Biological Diversity. Assessing the Full Cost of

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41 Live Trapping and Monitoring Mountain Lion Movements within a Feral Horse Population in Storey County, Nevada, Meeghan Gray Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology Program, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada Jack Spencer Jr. USDA API us Wildlife Services. West District, Reno, Nevada David Thain Animal Biotechnology Department, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada ARSIRACT: The depredation of feral horses by mountain lions is usually a rare phenomenon and only a fe cases have been documented in scientific literature. While such reports indicate that mountain lions are easily capable of killing feral horses, these studies have lbcused solely on the feral horses and have neglected to consider the mountain lions perspective (i.e., movement patterns, prey choice). Today. feral horses have created an artificial prey base Ibr mountain lions, and even if natural ungulate species were not present, mountain lions appear to survive and flourish while consuming feral horses. During a feral horse behavior study conducted in 2005, a resident mountain lion in the Virginia Mountain Range was deemed responsible lbr several feral horse deaths, with most of the carcasses Ibund being young foals or juvenile horses. A large live trap was developed and was strategically placed in a mountain lion travel corridor where the depredated horse carcasses were found. Bait in the live trap was changed on a weekly basis to prevent spoilage. the trap was set from October through December 2006 and monitored each morning. A 7-yearold, 60-kg female lion was caught in the trap after 3 months of trapping efforts. It was tranquilized, weighed and measured, and titled with a satellite GPS collar. The satellite collar gave 4 locations per night. Based on the those GPS locations, we determined the lion had depredated on many feral horses, and it continued to range in the same area, even though other native wildlife species, such as mule deer, were in low densities. We monitored her progress until October 2007 to determine overall movement patterns and prey choice. KEYWORDS: depredation. Equus cabal/us, feral horses, live trap, non-native, mountain lion. Nevada. Puma conco/or, ridiotcicmetrv. satellite collar Proc. 23' Vertebr. Pest Cont (R. M. Tirnrn and M. B. Madon, Eds.) Published at Univ. of Calif., Davis Pp INTRODUCTION The overpopulation of feral horses (Equus cabal/us) is recognized as a major ecological problem. Feral horses have been successful at populating areas for several reasons including their protected status, high reproduction rates, and lack of natural predation. Feral horses pose a management dilemma, in which managers must keep them on the range while balancing their impacts on the local environment. Due to the lack of natural predation, managers must adopt other strategies in order to manage numbers (i.e., removals and contraception), all of which have issues related to their use. Mountain lions (Puma concolor) consume a variety of prey items and are known to depredate on several ungulate species (e.g., mule deer, Odocoileus hem/onus, 1-lomocker 1970; moose, Alces ulces, Ross and Jalkotzy 1996; bighorn sheep, Ovis canadensis, Wehauseri 1996, Ross et al. 1997, McKinney et al. 2006), and their prey choice varies considerably both within and between habitats and sexes (see Anderson and Lindzey 2003). Mountain lion predation on feral horses is not widely documented in the literature. Mountain lions are known to be capable of depredating feral horses, are considered a potential predator of feral horses (Greger and Romney 1999), and in some cases are able to impact population numbers by reducing foal survivorship (Turner and Morrison 2001). Mountain lion predation on deer and bighorn sheep is an important management issue, especially where the prey population is recovering or in very low numbers (Rominger et al. 2004, Robinson et al. 2002). Mountain lion predation on horses is important for both the conservation of other ungulate species and population management of wild horses. However, most feral horse populations are not controlled by mountain lion predation, most likely due to lack of overlap of ranges between the two species. In Nevada, mountain lions are a large predatory game species and are sport hunted year-round, with populations remaining steady over the last several years (Cox et al. 2007). The state of Nevada also has high numbers of feral horses, and due to high numbers of both species, it is possible for predatorprey interactions to occur. A field study that looked at contraception efficacy and behavioral side effects in feral horses was initiated in spring During behavioral observations, several foal carcasses were found within 800 m of a major water source. Most of the carcasses were deemed, from several identifying signs (i.e., scratch marks, teeth punctures, covered by dirt, buried under trees), to be mountain lion kills. To look at lion predation and to determine prey choice, we captured and collared a large female mountain lion that ranged in the area. Here, we present methods of live-trapping a mountain lion with the use of frozen beaver (Castor canadensis) carcasses as bait and the use of satellite GPS technology to find predation sites. lyiiiil

42 PW METHODS The study site was located in the middle of the western part of the Virginia Mountain Range, located east of Reno, Nevada. The range is bounded by Highway 80 on the north, Highway 395 on the west, I Iighway 50 on the south, and Highway 95A on the east. It is dominated by sagebrush (Arteinisia trideniaia), rabbit brush (Chrjsothatnnus nauseosus), and a variety of grasses in the valley areas and some pinyon pine (Pinus monopl1viia) and junipers (Jun iperus ulahensis) in higher elevations. Feral horses are the dominant ungulate in the mountain range, and other species present to a lesser extent include mule deer and pronghorn (Antilocapra americana). Other large mammals include coyotes (Canis larrans), mountain lions, bobcats (Lynx ru/its), and less frequently, black bears (Ursus americarnis). Trap Design and Set-Up A large, steel-cage live trap was built to a size of 1 x 2.5 m in order to accommodate a large mountain lion. The trap was constructed by USDA APHIS Wildlife Services and was transported to the trap site by helicopter. The trap site was selected based on evidence of recent mountain lion activity, proximity to recent horse kills, and isolation from humans. Once the live trap was in place, it was covered with sagebrush while dirt, leaves, and small branches were used to cover steel grid trap floor. Artificial corridors leading to the door of the trap were constructed from large willow tree branches and sections of sagebrush. The addition of the "brushing off' vegetative material was employed to help funnel the mountain lion directly in front of the set live trap. A frozen juvenile beaver carcass, used as bait, was attached to the back of the trap. The trap had a push-lever system (trap pan) that allowed the door to shut in two separate ways: first, if the mountain lion pushed down on the pan with its paw, or second, if the mountain lion pulled down on separate lever on the trap's ceiling. A small section of pigeon wing was attached with a string to the top lever, and it hung down so as to move when the wind blew. Frozen beaver carcasses were replaced on a weekly basis or when the bait appeared rancid. A live trap was selected over other capture methods (i.e., trailing dogs, snares) due to issues with private lands, dry rocks (which would have made trailing with dogs difficult), and our desire to minimize potential stress to the lion. The live trap was set October 10, 2006 and was checked with binoculars each morning. Lion Capture Due to lack of lion interest in the area, an electronic call box was placed behind the trap. It was set to emit sounds of mountain lions mating and was programmed to run 20 minutes at a time for 4 separate periods during nighttime hours (see Miller and Spencer 2006). A large female mountain lion was captured December ii, 2006, approximately 2 weeks after the call box was installed. Once the mountain lion was captured, a team of researchers and veterinarians were called to respond. The mountain lion was darted with 150 mg tiletamine base and 150 mg zolazepam base (Telazol) intramuscularly in the right hindquarters, using a dart gun at a distance of m while she was still in the trap. An additional injection of 100 mg tiletamine base and 100 mg zolazepam base was given in the rump, to complete sedation. Once tranquilized, the trap was opened and immediately her hack and front legs were hobbled. She was carried out of the trap by two researchers and put on a blanket. Her body was covered and her eyes were treated with ointment. She measured 193 cm from nose to tip of tail and weighed approximately 60 kg. She was aged by tooth wear to he around 7 years of age and was considered in overall good condition. She was given a general exam that included a parasite check, blood sampling, and a pregnancy check. The total time of exam was 45 minutes. A satellite GPS collar (Model #TGW-3580, Telonics, Mesa, AZ) was fitted around her neck. The collar weighed 950 g and was programmed to take 4 GPS points per night at the 1600, 2000, 2300, and 0200 hrs in the winter and at 1700, 2100, 2400, and 0300 in the summer, in order to monitor nocturnal behavior. The collar also contained a VHS receiver and a mortality sensor, and it had an approximate battery life of 350 days. It was programmed to release on October 10, Once the collar was fitted, the mountain lion was placed back into the trap with her face toward the back of the trap. The hobbles were removed, and the door was left open. She was monitored from a distance for approximately 3 hrs, until she was walking and maintaining alertness. Predation Site Surveys The GPS collar was deployed successfully, and it automatically ed the previous night's available GPS points every morning. Home range size was determined using 95% kernel estimates (Worton 1989) with HOMERANGER vl.5 (Hovey 1999). Potential kill sites were determined from GPS point clusters (Anderson and Lindzey 2003). GPS clusters were investigated within a few days of receiving the downloaded data, with predation located on the ground using a hand-held GPS receiver, Most of the carcasses were found exactly at the GPS cluster, but if a kill was not found at the point cluster, an area with a radius of 800 m was searched. Once a kill was found, the species, sex, age, color, markings, and GPS location of the prey were recorded. It also was noted what body parts were consumed, the location of carcass (i.e., under tree, buried, open), and any other characteristics of the predation event (e.g., carcass dragged from kill site). When applicable, a Photohunter camera was set up at carcasses that were intact enough for another visit by the mountain lion. The camera was placed between 34.5 m away from the carcass at a height of m. These predation sites were monitored until the release of the collar. Frequency of visits was determined using ArcView' software (ESRI, Redlands, CA). RESULTS The collar stayed intact for the duration of the study, and no adverse side effects on the lion's health and apparent condition were noticed in photos taken at kill sites. The collar successfully released on the programmed date and was retrieved the next morning with

43 7- IlL rr the a VHF receiver. The iiiountain lion appeared to be in good physical condition for the 10 months, and she gave birth to 2 healthy kittens that were documented to be with her at the end of the study. We estimated that the kittens were born in late May Prey Selection Over the course of 10 months of monitoring, we found 22 carcasses attributed to the mountain lion's predation. A summary of carcass kills is found in Table 1. Three species of prey appeared to comprise her entire diet: over 77% of the carcasses found were feral horses, and all were determined to be under the age of 9 months. The only other species consumed were mule deer and coyotes. She spent an average of 4.86 days on each carcass. Cameras documented other visitors at the predation sites, including turkey vultures (Cathar/es aura), coyotes, magpies (Pica hudsonia), and one black bear. Movement Patterns Based on GPS locations and collar data, there were no changes in average ambient temperature or altitude during study. She never ranged into the suburban areas of the mountain range. The lion's home range size was estimated to be krn. Her movements decreased in June compared to May, after her kittens were born. DISCUSSION To our knowledge, this was the first case in Nevada of live-trapping a mountain lion using bait, rather than a fresh mountain lion kill. This method of capture was used because the terrain was not conducive to using dogs (presence of dry rocks, and the threat of hounds near houses and highways) for treeing a lion. Further, much of the mountain range is private property with segments of suburban areas. While this method took several months, it was successful and ultimately did not appear to adversely alter the health of the mountain lion. It is possible that the lion, before we set the trap, shifted to another part of her home range because of recent rains and cooler temperatures, which could be a possible explanation for the duration of time required to trap her. The call box was most likely responsible for her capture, since she was trapped 2 weeks after its deployment. In the future, the use of call boxes would most likely decrease capture time by enticing animals into the area. The only non-target species we trapped was a gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenleus), and it was released immediately after it was found. With this trapping method, it is important to check the trap every morning and use fresh bait as often as possible, as mountain lions tend to utilize fresh meat. We changed bait every 7-10 days, as cool winter weather kept the meat fresh for long periods of time. While the collar was successful at transmitting GPS points, there were several periods of time (up to 3 weeks on one occasion) that the GPS collar did not transmit a signal. When the collar was retrieved, both of its antennas had been completely worn down, which could influence the satellite capabilities. Also, the nature of mountain lions inhabiting rock crevices may have also Table 1. Total prey found at predation sites from GPS clusters of a collared female mountain lion ranging in Nevada, from December 2006 through October Prey Species Percentage in Diet Predation Rate* Horse Mule Deer Coyote *based on average nights visited per kill obstructed signals. Predation frequency was difficult to determine because of problems with the collar, but when she was in constant contact, she fed once per week, even with kittens. GPS technology was the only way to find kill sites and document daily movement patterns. We acknowledge that we missed several kills because of poor satellite coverage, and it is possible that she fed on small mammals (see Rosas-Rosas et al. 2003); however, these data reflect accurate depredation on feral horses over other native ungulates, since the overwhelming majority of carcasses found were horses (77%). We found that the quicker we investigated GPS clusters, the more likely we were able to find a carcass, thus noting the importance of weekly or even daily investigations of kill sites. By looking at the predation from the lion's perspective, we can quantify prey choice. Mountain lions are known to kill feral horses (Turner et al. 1992, Turner and Morrison 2001), and here we document another example of a mountain lion that killed and consumed feral horses even in the presence of other wildlife (deer) and human development (pets). We also found this mountain lion consumed more feral horses than native mule deer, which was not the case in the Montgomery Pass population (Turner and Morrison 2001). This may not represent a true preference, but rather reflected the abundance of horses within the range, compared to other ungulates. Conservative estimates showed feral horses to be 4-6 times more abundant that mule deer in our study area. From the kill sites, we determined this lion exclusively preyed on foals or juveniles. Young and solitary animals have been reported as most vulnerable to mountain lion predation (e.g., Turner et al. 1992), and we found every horse kill to be a foal or a juvenile (<9 months), as has been reported in other feral horse populations (Turner et al Turner and Morrison 2001). Feral horses provide a constant food source of young, small horses because of an 11-month gestation, and the majority of foals are born in the spring (April- June) every year (Keiper and I loupt 1984, Garrott and Sinif'f 1992). Therefore, when yearlings become potentially too big to capture, the next year's foals are being born. Because of this, a strategy to depredate young horses would work successfully for mountain lions. All kills were consumed to the bones and often eaten with maggots present. This is not often the case with male mountain lions, but because this female had kittens, she may have been forced to eat spoiled meat. She spent an average of 4.86 days on each carcass, and for horse carcasses she stayed on average 5.41 days. Horses may not only be easier to catch, but also may give her longer duration of time between kills because of their size.

44 These data are consistent with other mountain lion predation rates (Anderson and Lindzey 2003). There was also a seasonal effect, in which she stayed on carcasses less (3.11 days) during the summer months. This was attributed to wanner conditions and shorter times for meat to taint. It was difficult to sex carcass kills, and no differences were found in the kills that were sexed. No differences in color were found among the horse carcasses. While these kill sites attracted other species, most of the kills were protected due to burial or hidden underneath trees. Roughly 64% of carcasses were found under a tree or thick brush, while the rest were buried in the dirt or under grass. The mountain lion made an attempt to cover all carcasses, but several scavengers came to investigate or eat part of the carcass. The most common visitor was the turkey vulture, followed by other bird species, then coyotes and small rodents. One carcass was visited and consumed by a black bear, which resulted in the mountain lion leaving the kill and the general area for a few weeks. The presence of a black bear visiting the mountain lion kill may have forced her to make additional kills rather than to compete with the larger predator, especially since she had two vulnerable kittens. These dynamics may shift prey choice and predation strategies, but more data would be needed to tease apart those interactions. Our efforts to detect the mountain lion with a camera were surprisingly successful, since mountain lions are known to be difficult to capture on film (e.g., Long et al. 2003). This may be due to setting the cameras up at kill sites that mountain lions are mostly likely to revisit. We photographed the lion at several kill sites at least once, and were able to detect kittens as well. The first camera installation was set with a delay of 5 minutes, which resulted in 14 photos of the lion, along with other visitors. Toward the end of the study, we decreased the delay to I minute and were able to get several more photos. The mountain lion was present mostly during nighttime hours but on some occasions was documented at predation sites during dusk. During nighttime photos, a flash was used to get the photo. This did not seem to impact feeding behavior adversely, since the lion was seen re-visiting several carcasses over a several-night period, or she would drag the carcass to another location. The kittens were seen at kill sites in September 2007 and began to eat the meat with their mother. To our best estimates, they were born late May 2007, making them 4 months of age when they started to participate in eating meat. We photographed a deer carcass that was visited by another mountain lion while the collared lion was present, but it was not apparent if the unknown mountain lion was attracted to the carcass or was attracted to the female lion. No aggression was seen, and no changes in the health of the adult female or the kittens were seen after this encounter. This was the only occurrence of this kind that we documented. In conclusion, we present a new approach to trapping mountain lions without causing massive shifts in movement patterns. While we emphasize we only collared one individual, it is nonetheless another documentation of the ability of mountain lions to depredate feral animals, and to do so in the presence of native ungulate species. These data have implications for potential population control of feral horses. They will hopefully add to a future larger study that will track more mountain lions, both within this range where feral horses are present, and also in other ranges where horses are not present. While we found this one lion killing feral horses, there are very few (estimated to be less than 6) mountain lions in that mountain range thus, they would likely not be a major source of population control. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the USDA APHIS Wildlife Services liir technical support and the use of the live trap. We thank Mike Teglas and Amber Long for technical support during the capture. We thank private land owners for access to trapping and predation sites. LITERATURE CITED ANDERSON, C. R. JR., and F. G. LINDZEY istimating cougar predation rates from (ips location clusters. J. Wildl. Manage. 67(2): Cox, M., C. MOR1IMORE, M. DonEl., L. GILBERTSON, S. KIMimE. and 1). CARTER big game status. Nevada Department of Wildlife, Carson City, NV. 93 pp. GARROTI. R. A., and I). B. S!NtFF Limitations of maleoriented contraception for controlling feral horse populations. J. Wildl. Manage. 56(3): (ireger, P. D., and F. M. ROMNIv High foal mortality limits growth of a desert feral horse population in Nevada. (it. Basin Nat. 59(4): HORNOCKER. M. G An analysis of mountain lion predation upon mule deer and elk in the Idaho primitive area. WildI. Monogr. 21:1-39. I lovey. F. W i'he I lorne Ranger. Ursus Sothvare, Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada. KEIPER. R. R.. and K. A. HOu p i' Reproduction in feral horses: An eight-year study. Am. J. Vet. Res. 45(5): LONG, F. S., D. M. FECsKL, R. A. SWEITZER, J. A. JuNKS, B. M. PIERCN. and V. C. BLiilci-i Efficacy of photographic scent stations to detect mountain lions. W. No. Am. Nat. 63 (4): MCKINNI:Y, T., J. C. Di-:vos JR., W. B. BALLARD. and S. R. Bou Mountain lion predation of translocated desert bighorn sheep in Arizona. WildI. Soc. Bull. 35(4): MiLi.o. A. B., and J. SPENCER The electronic calling system: Effectiveness for capturing a wide variety of offending wildlife species in Nevada, 2002 through Proc. Vertebr. Pest ConC 22: ROBINSON, H. S., R. B. WINLGIJS, and J. C. (iwilliam Cougar predation and population growth olsympatric mule deer and white-tailed deer. Can. J. Zool. 80(3): ROMINGIiR, F. M.. II. A. WIIITLAW, D. L. WEYBRIGEFI', W. C. DUNN, and W. B. 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