An analysis by a watchdog group showed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) routinely ignored the effects of livestock grazing on the decline of sage grouse habitat.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)—with information obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests—concluded livestock grazing was a significant cause of habitat degradation on a majority of lands where the BLM and U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have publicly implicated wild horses in declines of sage grouse habitat. In a PEER press release, they contend BLM’s “deliberate obfuscation of livestock eco-impacts is a function of political pressure from the ranching industry.”
“USGS and BLM have put on scientific blinders when it comes to public lands grazing,” said Kirsten Stade, PEER’s special projects manager, in a statement. Stade noted that cattle outnumber wild horses on BLM lands by a ratio of more than 30-to-1.
According to PEER, BLM data shows 11.5 million acres of the 21.5 million acres of allotments within herd management areas (HMA) identify livestock as the cause of failure to meet rangeland health standards for quality of water, vegetation and soils. Of the failed 11.5 million acres, BLM shows 6 million acres were by livestock alone, and the remainder was by livestock and horses. The analysis further states that 311,000 acres, or 1 percent, have been identified as failing standards due to wild horses alone.
In a letter to Department of the Interior (DOI) Secretary Deb Haaland, PEER stated, “An equal amount of priority sage grouse habitat lies within grazing allotments that remain to be evaluated, but patterns suggest this habitat will also exhibit high degrees of degradation.”
The statement was based on a 2014 letter PEER sent regarding the proposed listing of the sage grouse on the Endangered Species Act. The letter asserted that almost 15 million acres of sage grouse preliminary priority habitat remained to be evaluated by BLM.
BLM conducts periodic rangeland health assessments on public land grazing allotments to determine water and habitat quality and to identify why a range is substandard, according to Peter Lattin, a former BLM contractor PEER hired to analyze the data.
“While wild horses certainly impact sage grouse habitat, to focus conservation efforts for this habitat on addressing impacts made by thousands of wild horses, while ignoring troves of data on the impacts from millions of cattle, undermines your efforts to create a culture of scientific integrity at DOI,” Tim Whitehouse, executive director for PEER, wrote in the letter.
To illustrate their assertion, PEER stated that in Colorado’s Sand Wash Basin HMA, 10 grazing allotments overlap portions of the HMA, and BLM conducted a wild horse gather despite agency records showing livestock grazing at fault for poor rangeland conditions. In Utah’s Onaqui Mountain HMA, five of the six overlapping grazing allotments failed to meet basic rangeland health standards. Despite BLM not listing livestock as the cause, aerial imagery shows otherwise, PEER claimed.
PEER also said that in Nevada, 88 percent of allotment acreage in which wild horses have been identified as a cause of land degradation also list livestock grazing as a cause.
Whitehouse said, “BLM’s handling of information about unsustainable livestock practices has been the antithesis of sound science,” and that the rationale for gathering wild horses is based on the USGS research.
USGS study
The analysis follows a research study by USGS, which found greater sage-grouse populations may decline by more than 70 percent within free-roaming horse occupied areas by 2034 if horse populations remain unchecked.
The study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management analyzed the population change of sage grouse leks over 15 years in Nevada and northeastern California as a function of wild horse appropriate management levels (AML) and other factors such as wildfire, percentage of sagebrush cover and precipitation.
USGS stated in areas where horse populations were at or below the AML, impacts to sage grouse population trends were consistent with areas where horses were absent on the landscape altogether. The study by USGS suggests, “When horse populations are double the established AML, for example, there is a 76 percent probability of sage grouse decline.” The probability increases to 97 percent and greater than 99 percent when AML levels are 2.5 times and greater than three times the AML maximum, respectively.
The study recommends using sage grouse as an indicator species to validate AML in sagebrush ecosystems to “assist with an adaptive management framework that consists of multiple-use mandates intended to balance the presence of free-roaming horses with managed livestock and native sagebrush-dependent species.”
“Preserving the integrity of sagebrush ecosystems within the paradigm of multiple-use is a common goal of management agencies tasked with public lands stewardship,” said Peter Coates, a research wildlife biologist with the USGS Western Ecological Research Center and lead author of the study.
“The results of the study indicate that coexistence is possible for free-roaming horses and sage grouse if horse populations are maintained below established AMLs.” — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
