It is another $70 million subsidy to ranchers. Every horse off the range means another cow/calf pair can be there, basically. Money in the rancher's pockets. The ranch lobby is very powerful, so taxpayer money is spent on something yet again that only benefits a handful of rich ranchers. And $70 million is a low estimate. We pay for the helicopter time and the corrals and the feed and transport, and even pay a few ranchers large monthly boarding fees for the horses they put in special reserves.
Personally, I prefer seeing wild horses to range cows. I realize that cows are money, but then they should raise them on their own land. I won't go into detail on how the grazing permits work... the basics are that if you have a pasture to overwinter your cattle on your ranch, you can get a permit to run cattle on federal land for basically free. The BLM will even develop water holes and pay for miles and miles of drift fence. More tax subsidy for the ranchers.
Grazing rights are on of the few things that can be passed on generationally. If you are born to a rancher, you inherit the rights on the adjacent federal land. It is about the only place where the government admits all people are not born with the same opportunities. Big ranches are like feudal estates. Only the lords can beget lords. Like some old English system. It is sort of like a bad episode of Yellowstone, but it is reality.
The Duttons got there first, so they and their heirs are treated differently than anyone else. They control jillions of acres but what they don't say is that it is kept afloat by the subsidization of the grazing on the federal lands around them. I like ranching and ranchers, but not the welfare they get. Of course, on much of their grazing land, if it has ever been under cultivation, they are likely paid to not grow crops on it, too, in the guise of conservation.
I shared an office with the wild horse manager for northern nevada and california for several years, so I am familiar with the issue, and realize there are more moving parts than what I have simplified. I just happen to like wild horses and have seen the game up close. Catching them and sterilizing then releasing them so they live out their lives without us paying about $20k per animal to board them for the rest of their lives is not done... the lobby always says that the sterilization doesn't work... bullshit.
My personal idea is to have them classified as wildlife. They are classified as feral exotic animals. But things like pheasants and chukars are not native either, and we manage them as wildlife.
Then we could issue capture permits and not make the taxpayer pay for their removal. Just have a no-kill clause so they don't end up in the slaugherhouse, and it would be great sport among the cowboys.
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