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Monthly Archives: May 2025

OUR WILD HORSES, NOW YOU SEE THEM … NOW YOU DON’T

May 2025
Research Report by Kathleen Gregg

Hundreds of our wild horses missing from Flanigan and Fort Sage Herd Management Areas (HMA) appear to have been illegally captured and removed last fall during the 2024 Twin Peaks HMA round up. Due to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lack of transparency, I reviewed and analyzed the data and circumstantial evidence and found the truth.

BLM Population Statistics 2024-2025
HMADateBLM Horse Population #DateBLM Horse Population #Notes
Twin Peaks3/1/20241,1733/1/20258432024 Captured 435 per FOIA*
Flanigan3/1/20245673/1/2025230No Roundup since 2012**
Fort Sage3/1/20245833/1/2025266No Roundup since 1998**
*435 wild horses removed from within the Twin Peaks HMA
**Significant number of horses missing from both the Flanigan and the Fort Sage HMAs

Background:

The BLM is required by law to notify the public of any capture or removal of our wild horses from our public lands. The BLM issues an Environmental Assessment (EA) or Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA) to inform the public of any management actions that impact wild horses and burros. In other words, the BLM is not allowed to just roundup and remove our wild horses or burros (WH&B) from legally designated wild horse and burro lands without informing the public and allowing the public to comment or appeal the BLM’s proposed plan or decision. These legally designated WH&B lands are known as Herd Management Areas (HMAs) or Herd Areas (HAs) where wild horses and burros are to be protected by the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act.

In Northeastern California, on the Nevada state line are three HMAs: the Twin Peaks HMA, Flanigan HMA and the Fort Sage HMA. Below is a map showing the nearby relationship of these three HMAs. Flanigan is about one mile south of Twin Peaks and Fort Sage is about 8 miles south of Twin Peaks. This area is mostly in the arid high desert and only partially fenced.

Here is a timeline to help explain:

March 1, 2024 BLM annual published HMA populations.

  • Twin Peaks 1,173 wild horses
  • Flanigan 567 wild horses
  • Fort Sage 434 wild horses

In April of 2024, the BLM issued a DNA that stated they would be removing an additional 870 wild horses from the Twin Peaks HMA based on their 10-year plan.

In October 2024, as a result of a successful legal challenge of the DNA, by Friends of Animals, the BLM was only authorized to roundup a portion of the Twin Peaks HMA, but not the entire HMA as originally planned.

The BLM was only authorized to roundup in only two of the five home ranges, the far north section called the North Observation Home Range, and the South section called the Skedaddle Home Range.

As a result of the court’s decision, the BLM would only be allowed to remove approximately 435 horses from the Twin Peaks HMA instead of the originally proposed removal of 870 wild horses, according to the 2024 population estimates and flight inventory for those two home ranges. However, because the BLMs contract with the Cattoor Livestock Company contract for $205,465 was already agreed upon, removing only 435 horses would not meet the quota for the dollar amount in the contract.

Only after analysis of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) data and the circumstantial evidence, it is obvious that the BLM directed the contractor to capture wild horses outside the Twin Peaks HMA, those horses being from the nearby Flanigan and Fort Sage HMAs.  After reviewing the FOIA documents and BLM online data, 517 wild horses were captured outside the Twin Peaks HMA. The majority of those “outside HMA” horses captured were most likely from the Flanigan and Fort Sage HMAs, which was not a legal roundup or disclosed to the public.

Further analysis shows that it just so happens that the two very near-by HMAs the Flanigan and Fort Sage show a total of 614 missing during that time (March 1, 2024 through March 1, 2025). See population statistics table above again for reference.

  • Flanigan HMA March 1, 2024 population 567, and the March 1, 2025 population 230.
    • This is a loss of 337 wild horses (missing). No legal roundup since 2012
  • Fort Sage HMA March 1, 2024 population was 583, and the March 1, 2025 population was only 266.
    • This is a loss of 317 wild horses (missing). No legal roundup since 1998.

No legal roundup was planned for either the Flanigan or Fort Sage HMAs during that time or any announcement of a roundup that would of notified the public or any public comment period.  The most recent legal roundup for the Flanigan HMA was January 2012 and the most recent l roundup of the Fort Sage HMA was in September 1998. Therefore, there should not have been any large loss of wild horses during 2024. The population data says otherwise.

BLM did provide a trap site map showing the trap sites outside the Twin Peaks HMA were to the south of Twin Peaks within a short distance from both the Flanigan and the Fort Sage HMAs. Knowing that the trap sites were only a few miles from the Flanigan and Fort Sage HMAs and using the BLM published 2024 and 2025 wild horse population figures documenting 337 wild horses missing from the Flanigan HMA and 317 wild horses missing  from the Fort Sage HMA between March 1, 2024 and March 1, 2025 HMA, with no roundup, it appears that many of the 634 missing wild horses were illegally captured and removed from the Flanigan and Fort Sage HMAs under the disguise as part of the 2024 Twin Peaks HMA roundup.

So my question is: DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?

REFERENCES:
2024 BLM Wild Horse and Burro Population Estimates

2025 Wild Horse and Burro Population Estimates

2024 Twin Peaks Herd Management Area Wild Horse and Burro Gather | Bureau of Land Management

CONTRACT to CATTOOR LIVESTOCK ROUNDUP, INC | USAspending

FOIA DOI-2025-001326

BLM Natl Wild Horse and Burro Herd Area Polygons | BLM GBP Hub

 
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Posted by on May 27, 2025 in Uncategorized

 

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Semiotics Symbols & Nature’s Signs Relationships

A short Conversation with John Cox, M.A. C/M

“Trees warn each other of danger, within their fungi networks; bacteria will send and receive signal. Confused?  We live in a a world of signs, good and bad.  Can we get lost in this world?  Can perception derail our efforts of staying attuned to what is happening, i.e. developing, right in front of us; or, are we, as humans, so frail and inadequate, that we lose the connection, between Nature and our very Souls, due to myth confused with reality, or lost perceptions. Have we lost touch with our Natural World of Resources, to merely become an enemy to all that surrounds us within Nature? 

They, the animal world around us, know signs about us, i.e. humans, that we would never imagine they could even think about – from their Natural Selection Survival Skills Set.  Their skill set is of reality to stay alive, ours’ not so much.

Our brains have developed, yes once again, through Natural Selection, to make sense of all the signals and the noise we are confronted with, daily.  Yes, some people evolve.  And yes, some have not evolved.  Nature evolves always – from the very necessity of survival.

Humans have an odd situation, ongoing.  Trees do not react to a Lions Roar, or, a Howl from a Wolf, or from any other large mammals because, well, they are trees – understanding this is a good example of what I am talking about here – a tree is a tree, and all I need to say.  And you, as a human, unless a tree has fallen on you, do not fear the tree, but understand it.  You accept the signal and symbol of the tree, precisely, without fear.

Humans on the other hand, from a Lions roar nearby, or a Wolf’s howl nearby, will react, most anyway (i.e. — some humans know better, i.e. from experience or the necessity to “not” over reacting, because nothing good develops from over-reacting) will over-react with indoctrinated “mythic-fear-response”. . . Or, making the situation worse, through bad-decision-making, with “fear” as a major “decision-conclusion-action” dynamic”. 

Our “innate pattern recognition system process” — often confuses reality from mythic-perceptions, is the point I am developing here, in this conversation.  This is a situation that varies, from learned-symbolic observation, signal response, and through experience, from life-forms or species on this plant; but, we share, ironically, with the rest of the animal kingdom or life forms on this planet we live upon.

Much of our signs, for example the dynamic of a Horse, what breed it is, how it rides, its gallop, trot standard, or walk, a horses eating habits, prevention and their health predicated on our understanding combined with our built-in awareness from what we see or hear; and the training of a horse, its mannerism, its conduct, and how they can survive alone in Nature, or within their grazing pasture and with other horses – through Experience, in the matters of health, and keeping them alive. . .  Once again the reading of signs and being attuned to what it is we are seeing, in reality – because our reaction to it may require a life or death decision to be made – Or other variables, far less consequential, but never the less a resolution to be had.  Should we over-react?  With reasoned experience, no reason to over-react what so ever.

We learn to pay attention to certain things, we have experience with, in order to make descent decisions.  If we cannot read the signs appropriately, then we cannot make responsible decisions, then it becomes decisions from perceptions, most often from fear or even hearsay.  And often, perceptions are Fear-Based, and become very destructive.

It is experience, in life, and experience in the resolution development process in regard to how humans make it through life.  Experience denotes whether we are an asinine individual, or a good person, or a normal guy or gal, and gets along with more people than actually makes enemies.  Once again – experience.  We learn to pay attention to things within Our Environment, to pay attention too.  Sadly, we have lost the communication with, our animal world, as well as other life-forms on this planet we live upon, with them all.  A superiority-mental-complex is more destructive than constructive.

If we can concede, that we cannot make appropriate decisions upon everything we see, or observe done, we can become better people.  In another words, humans do not know everything, and face challenges, due to an odd refusal to learn, from other live forms, other than to exploit it, most often for cash-money.  We can be on a valuable lesson-learned – life enhanced form of living, and between humans and Nature alike.  All of this by understanding the “Signs” that we do see and understand, and know the difference between those we must learn about, or maintain the fact, acknowledgement, we do not know something about the things we have no experience or involvement with.  Developing a form of Semiotics (i.e. the formal study or signs and symbols, Cox, John W., Master’s Degree Program, Perceptions of Language Semiotics between Humans’ and Nature) or, of interest to us,  are the habitats of Eco-Signs, or the study of signs between humans, animals, and regional terrestrial landscapes & interactions within the process of habitat health via Natural Selection Process, et al.

I am pointing this out, in conversation, as we are not being attentive today, in the matters of the ability to Process Actively, without personal or special interest agendas, a healthy Habitat and Ecological Process and System.  This is due to an over-reach of destructive perceptions generated “not by experience” with the reginal habitats, so much as myth, finances, and perceptions that steer us away from the ability to make good decisions, about our Ecological Habitats and over all Environments.  Ignorance and Fear can be very harsh, very destructive.”  — John Cox, M.A. C/M

 
 

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