Ep. 143 - Feral Horses on Public Lands in Nevada

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Podcast & Blast with Hal Herring

Zack Williams

Outdoors, Wilderness, Sports, Fishing, Outdoor, Hunting, Sports & Recreation

4.6 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 25 October 2022

⏱️ 99 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

BHA Podcast & Blast, Ep. 143: Feral Horses on Public Lands in Nevada

More than 82,000 feral horses roam U.S. public lands, about four times as many as the land and water can sustain. Almost all of them live in Nevada, the most arid state in the union, where their impacts are almost unimaginable: desertification and massive loss of wildlife, ranging from pollinators and other insects to sage grouse, elk, mule deer and pronghorn. The Bureau of Land Management is doing what it can to address this crisis, but the agency finds itself in an impossible position with an entirely misguided but powerful feral horse advocacy movement. However, a growing coalition of biologists and natural resource scientists, hunters and anglers, wildlife advocates and people who love the Nevada public lands (and the horses) are in a desperate race to solve this problem in a humane way – before it’s too late. Hal traveled to Nevada to talk with some of these experts: Mike Cox, state bighorn sheep and mountain goat biologist for the Nevada Department of Wildlife; Tina Bundy Nappe, an Eastern Sierra landowner and public lands advocate; Jim Sedinger, sage grouse biologist and retired University of Nevada wildlife ecology professor; and Bryce Pollock, a conservationist and hunter with the Nevada chapter of BHA.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Even if they were native, the issues that Mike has brought up in their impact and their numbers and their size have disastrous implications, even more so than cattle.
0:15.0	And cattle we know we've done a lot of studies on, they're damaging too.
0:19.0	But horses even more so because we have virtually no management of them on the land other than
0:24.7	removal.
0:25.7	What we're advocating is bringing the numbers down to appropriate management levels where they can coexist with our native wildlife.
0:36.5	These deer are programmed to go to these certain hillsides.
0:40.7	When they get there, all the grass is gone because it was eaten by horses that were
0:44.2	there 365 days. And then they have another 40 miles to go to their next stopover, and then
0:50.9	that place is already eaten out. so we're looking at 70% survival in some of our
0:57.4	meal which is incredible I mean that's amazingly low.
1:02.0	Hey everybody, Hal hearing, Back Country Hunters and Anglers podcast and Blasts.
1:08.0	Hey, I really wanted to thank Filson for his long support of this podcast.
1:14.0	Without Philson, I don't get to do what I want to do with it.
1:18.0	And I've had a mighty good time over the last couple years,
1:22.0	thanks to their support. So I'd ask everybody to check
1:25.9	out Filson.com or your local outdoor retailers. If you know the history is for 125 years,
1:34.0	Philson's uncompromising commitment to quality has defined their brand
1:38.0	and their authenticity.
1:41.0	They have built trust within that community to become more than just a clothing brand.
1:45.0	They are the stewards of an American outdoor tradition.
1:49.0	So if you look at old photos of the Alaskan Gold Rush and on through the 1900s, you'll see that
1:57.4	Filson has always produced some of the best wool products available anywhere. And that tradition is carried on. Check it out. There's
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