Feds Developing 15-20 Year Management Plan for California Wild Horse Territory: Your Comments Needed by January 14 2013
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is seeking public input for revision of the Devil’s Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory Management Plan (TMP). This plan will establish the short- and long-term policies for management of this wild horse territory for the next 15 to 20 years. The USFS has revised its earlier proposal for wild horse territory and is now proposing to remove habitat from this herd.
The Devils Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory is approximately 268,750 acres, or 419 square miles, in size. The USFS only allows 275 to 335 horses on this Territory that is also used by 10 different livestock grazing permitees. The proposed management plan calls for a potentially massive roundup in October 2013 to remove as many as 893 wild horses from this WHT. This would be devastating for this herd, which hasn't been rounded up since 2006.
This is the scoping period for revision of the management plan, so now is the time to let the USFS what alternatives the public wants to see for management of these wild horses. Please take easy action below to personalize and send in your comments. When you click send, your suggestions will be individually emailed to the USFS.
Email: comments-pacificsouthwest-modoc@fs.fed.us
Please include “Devil’s Garden WHT” in the subject line of the email for easy identification.
For electronically mailed comments, the sender should normally receive an automated electronic acknowledgement from the agency as confirmation of receipt. If the sender does not receive an automated acknowledgement of the comments, it is the sender’s responsibility to ensure receipt by other means. Please indicate if you would prefer to receive future documents and notifications in electronic format.
The deciding official for the Modoc National Forest will be the Forest Supervisor. [Kimberly Anderson is the Modoc National Forest Supervisor.]
The FS is proposing to reduce the land in the Wild Horse Territory by changing the boundaries from Map 2 to Map 1 below. The FS claims an "administrative error" "incorporated about another 23,631 acres" which connected what the FS is now referring to as to the "East" and "West" home ranges.
... the most current approved Gather Contract(s) [roundup] and could begin as soon as October 2013.
To date, the Forest Service has identified five key issues:
1. Impacts to individual wild horses, family bands and the herd that could result from managing herd size within the Appropriate Management Level (AML) established as a population range with a lower and an upper limit.
2. Impacts to the natural resources needed to support wild horse use on a year-round basis.
3. Impacts to wildlife, migratory birds, and threatened, endangered, and special status species and their habitat.
4. Impacts to cultural resources.
5. Impacts to local social and economic factors, including authorized livestock grazing use.
Fencing Alternatives Proposed
Alternative 1: Existing water developments and fences would be periodically maintained, but not replaced or reconstructed when they outlive their useful life.
Alternative 2: Fourteen miles of existing boundary fences and another ten to fifteen miles of riparian exclosure fences would be proposed for reconstruction within the next five years pending completion of additional site-specific NEPA analysis. Included is 5 miles of boundary fence between Emigrant Springs and Big Sage and 8 miles of boundary fence between Black Rock and Avanzino. The Crowder Mountain, Deadhorse, Emigrant Springs and Lauer Reservoir riparian exclosure fences would also be proposed for reconstruction.
Alternative 3: Included could be removal of approximately 30-40 miles of existing interior division or riparian exclosure fences and the possible construction of additional water developments in areas such as Mowitz or Timbered Mountain that are not currently well-watered.
Environmental Assessment Scheduled for Release in March 2013
An environmental assessment (EA) will be prepared which will summarize the environmental effects associated with implementation of the updated management plan for the Devil’s Garden WHT. The EA will be made available to the public for a 30-day review and comment period in approximately March 2013.
The Devil’s Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory (WHT) is located within Modoc County, California beginning about 7 miles north of the City of Alturas. The WHT comprises approximately 232,520 acres of federal land. Of this, 97 percent (224,888 acres) is National Forest System lands administered by the Modoc National Forest’s Devil’s Garden and Doublehead Ranger Districts (MDF) and 3 percent (7,632 acres) is public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management’s Alturas Field Office (BLM).