Skip to main content

FREE Roaming Equids and Ecosystem Sustainability Network hosts a free webinar

Angie Jensen
 

Dear Extension Foundation Partners,

I am writing to share with you a phenomenal opportunity that facilitated psychological safety and crucial conversations about the sustainable management of free-roaming equids at the 2023 Free-roaming Equid Summit held last fall in St. George, Utah.  The Summit brought together stakeholders from across the spectrum of human emotions, values, and perceptions about wild horses and burros and their management.  Summit participants engaged BLM and USFS line managers one-on-one in open and frank discussions about what constitutes sustainable management. Last year the BLM gathered 21,000 wildlife horses and burros and returned 2,000 back to the range that was treated with fertility controls. This means they must now house 19,000 more horses on top of the 60,000 already held off the range. Because of the increased costs of off-range holding, the BLM will not have money to gather horses and burros in 2023. This means the population will return to 2022 levels of over 80,000.  This is unsustainable.

Thanks to the monumental efforts of USGS and BLM, we were able to pilot a new and innovative tool – PopEquus – which allowed all to, if you will “game” wild horse and burro management. The tool allows the user to model how a wild horse or burro population may respond to a series of management options over time, and more importantly, the costs.  The tool enabled participants to set aside their anxieties and emotions for a brief period to focus on what achieving the goal of healthy herds on healthy rangelands might look like.  It was a game-changer for all!

The great news is USGS and BLM have released PopEquus for public access. To facilitate public use and understanding of PopEquus,, The Free-roaming Equids Network has partnered with USGS and BLM to offer free webinars. The first will be held on April 5, 2023.

To learn more about the tool, and how to register for the webinar, please see the information provided below.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Respectfully

Terry A. Messmer

https://extension.usu.edu/freesnetwork/webinars/index

Attachments

Hide
Files (1)

Add Comment

Comments (0)

Post

About the Extension Foundation

The Extension Foundation was formed in 2006 by Extension Directors and Administrators. Today, the Foundation partners with Cooperative Extension through liaison roles and a formal plan of work with the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy (ECOP) to increase system capacity while providing programmatic services, and helping Extension programs scale and investigate new methods and models for implementing programs. The Foundation provides professional development to Cooperative Extension professionals and offers exclusive services to its members. In 2020 and 2021, the Extension Foundation has awarded 85% of its direct funding back to the Cooperative Extension System, 100% of funds are used to support Cooperative Extension initiatives. 

This technology is supported in part by New Technologies for Ag Extension (funding opportunity no. USDA-NIFA-OP-010186), grant no. 2023-41595-41325 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Extension Foundation. For more information, please visit extension.org. You can view the terms of useat extension.org/terms.

Membership Required

We're sorry. You must be signed in to continue. Sign In or Register
×
Are you sure you want to remove from your Block List?
×
When you block a person, they can no longer invite you to a private message or post to your profile wall. Replies and comments they make will be collapsed/hidden by default. Finally, you'll never receive email notifications about content they create or likes they designate for your content.
Note: if you proceed, you will no longer be following .
×
Advanced Search
Advanced Search
Link copied to your clipboard.
×