On April 24th, 2024, the Vermont Law and Graduate School and Wild Horse Fire Brigade sent a letter to the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) District office in Medford, Oregon, proposing a collaboration between the Wild Horse (feral) Fire Brigade and the BLM to reduce wildfire threat through feral horse grazing on the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument.
Though well-meaning, the Vermont Law School attorneys know little about wildfires or feral horses, which they continuously call “wildlife.”
The Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (CSNM) is not just a piece of land but a vital ecological link between the Cascade Range and the coastal Siskiyou Mountains. Its unique position straddling the California-Oregon border makes it a crucial part of our natural heritage. Designated in 2000 by Bill Clinton’s Presidential Decree and expanded in 2017 by President Obama, the CSNM now spans 113,500 acres. Its protection is not just a matter of policy but a responsibility we all share to preserve this ecological treasure for future generations.
Timber interests challenged President Obama’s expansion of the monument. Still, the Supreme Court refused to hear their case and let two appellate court rulings stand, which determined that the monument’s expansion was legal. For more on the BLM scams that increase logging in the monument, see Andy Kerr’s column.
Enter the Vermont Law School, which now proposes using feral horses to reduce wildfires.
In their April letter to the BLM, the Vermont Law School clinic asserts that wild horses (feral) have a “right” to the open range in the Soda Mountain Wilderness adjacent to Monument lands. The letter requests that Siskiyou County recognize the practicality of the wild horses for wildfire management and formally acknowledge Wild Horse (feral) Fire Brigade’s right to manage its wild (feral) horses on the open range.
MISGUIDED ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT FERAL HORSES
There are several problems with the Vermont Law School’s assumptions.
First, feral horses are not, as the Wild Horse Brigade asserts, “native wildlife” in need of restoration.
The Wild Horse (feral) Brigade advocates for feral horses. Like many horse advocates, they seek an excuse to justify horse grazing on public lands. In particular, the WHFB advocates “rewilding” horses in Wilderness Areas where natural ecological processes and native wildlife should be protected and preserved.
The assumption that feral horses represent “native wildlife” is contentious. However, sound evolutionary evidence demonstrates that the horse lineage disappeared from North America at the end of the Pleistocene. Evidence to the contrary is fraught with issues, and most authorities believe horses went extinct along with other Ice Age mammals like wooly mammoths, giant sloths, camels, and cave bears.
As Dave Willis, who has dedicated decades to protecting the CSNM from grazing, points out: “We’ve invested years in removing (some of) the cattle from BLM allotments in the CSNM, which had a grazing season of a few months a year with legally limited numbers – and now Vermont Law’s “Environmental Advocacy Clinic” proposes legitimizing feral horses (that are already there) all year round.”
The horses are reproducing, adding to the population, plus the WHFB is continuously adding more horses.
On behalf of the Wild Horse (feral) Brigade, a Vermont Law School Professor sued BLM for BLM’s attempted gather of feral horses on Green Diamond land in BLM’s Pokegama Wild [sic] Horse Herd Management Area (HMA) BLM tried to use a categorical exclusion to gather feral horses on Green Diamond’s private property only – at the request of Green Diamond and local ranchers.
According to Willis, the BLM’s Pokegama feral horse HMA overlaps the east end of the CSNM, and the BLM’s “Appropriate Management Level” for the entire HMA is 30-minimum to 50-maximum horses. The BLM census estimates 246 Pokegama HMA horses, and grows larger every year.
FLAWED ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WILDFIRE
One problem with the Vermont Law School effort is the assumption that grazing can reduce large, high-severity fires by reducing fuels. Numerous misconceptions are associated with this proposition.
Wildfires are one of the major ecological processes that have created the dynamic and biologically diverse landscape of the CSNM. The idea that humans must restrict or control wildfire is an anthropocentric concept that ignores the evolutionary role of fire—all kinds of wildfire, including large, high-severity blazes.
Second, all large, high-severity wildfires are climate/weather-driven, not fuel-driven. With high winds, sparks can jump miles ahead of a fire front or any “fuel reduction.”
A widely cited paper advocating livestock grazing to reduce wildfire fuels concludes grazing does not work when extreme fire conditions exist. However, these extreme fire weather conditions are the only times wildfire can rapidly expand and char extensive acreage.
Grazing may reduce fine fuels for a year or two, but the plants grow back rapidly, so any such “solution” requires continuous grazing to achieve any results.
Grazing in very select locations may reduce fuels, but as a landscape tactic, it doesn’t work or effectively halt wildfires under extreme fire weather conditions.
HORSES COMPETE WITH NATIVE HERBIVORES
A further problem with feral horses is that they can compete with native ungulates (like other livestock) for forage. Horses have an inefficient digestion system compared to ruminates, so pound-for-pound horses must consume more forage than similar-sized native species like elk.
Given their large size, feral horses can also compact soil (like cattle) and trample native vegetation.
The painful irony is that Vermont Law School has failed to contact local activists like the Soda Mountain Council. Nor are they aware that the Monument proclamation requires that the agency protect the native biodiversity and the region’s connectivity. Feral horses do none of these things.
If you wish to voice your opinion, please contact the Cascade-Siskiyou Manager at lpbrown@BLM.gov and urge the BLM to round up all the feral horses and preclude additional horse transplants.
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