Federal Land and Population Change

If I had to pick a different profession, I might choose geographer. I love looking at maps, and it is amazing how much they can tell us. Take the map above, for instance. I've seen it in two different places (including this one) in the last two weeks, and I think it's one of the coolest maps around and just had to share it with you. The map shows how much of each state is owned by the federal government. (To see a larger version of the map, just click on it.)

I used to think that Alaska had the most federally-owned land, but it doesn't, it's in second place. The top five states are:

1. Nevada - 84.5%

2. Alaska - 69.1%

3. Utah - 57.4%

4. Oregon - 53.1%

5. Idaho - 50.1%

Did you notice that all those numbers are over 50 percent? The government manages more than half the land in each of those states! The federal government is caretaker for nearly one-third of the land in the entire U.S. The land is managed in a number of different ways, although I found it amazingly hard to find info on the internet about amounts of land that different agencies manage. Here are some statistics from my trusty America's Federal Lands insert in the National Geographic Magazine from 1982. I've had it up on my wall for years. 

The Department of Interior manages about 70 percent of federal land, with the Bureau of Land Management responsible for over 40 percent, and the Fish and Wildlife Service,  National Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs each managing about 10 percent. The Department of Agriculture oversees about 25 percent of public lands via the U.S. Forest Service. And finally, the Department of Defense holds the reins for about three percent of federal lands, while the remainder is an unspecified 'other'. 

The map above also makes it obvious that the bulk of the federally owned land is in the western United States. Considering the pattern of settlement in the U.S., this makes sense. Now something that doesn't make quite so much sense, at least in the terms of where private land is available: where the population is growing in the U.S. The map below (found at this website) shows which states are growing the most in darker shades of blue (again, click on the map to see it larger).

The number one state for population growth between 1990 and 2005? Why Nevada is number 1 again!

Here are the top five states gaining population:

1. Nevada - 101%

2. Arizona -62%

3. Utah -43%

4. Idaho -42%

5. Colorado -42%

Three states are in both lists, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Why are people moving to states that have so little private land? Perhaps those large swaths of public land are part of the appeal--plenty of space to go and play. Maybe North Dakota, the only state with a negative growth rate, just needs to make more of its land revert to federal management and they will see large population growth. Okay, that's not likely to happen anytime soon, but perhaps Nevada can find some other ways to be number one.

Desert Destination: Wild Horse Roundup

My husband told me that there was a wild horse roundup going on in a nearby mountain range,  so yesterday we took a little drive to see what was going on. What can I say, I'm a sucker for photographic opportunities.

As mentioned in a previous post, "wild horse" is a loosely used term. These horses are descendants of horses that escaped domestication, so technically they are feral horses, but the term wild horses is usually the one used. Wild horses are found throughout the western United States. While researching them, I was surprised by just how many there are. Many are found on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land, and the BLM has an extensive Wild Horse and Burro Program to manage them.

 
The BLM has designated 270 Herd Management Areas (HMA) in ten western states. Click on the map above to see a larger version. Each HMA has different objectives about type of horse to be managed for and size of the herd. These HMAs support approximately 33,000 wild horses and burros (BLM Fact Sheet). According to the BLM, this is 5,700 more wild horses and burros than can coexist with the other uses on those public lands, including grazing by native species like elk and deer. 

According to the BLM specialist I talked to, the wild horse populations often increase about 25% each year--so in about four years the herd can double in size. About every two to four years, the BLM or a contractor goes out to do a roundup to decrease the herd size. Without these roundups, the wild horses would simply overpopulate an area and there wouldn't be enough feed. The roundups bring wild horses to town so that they can be adopted.

Roundups are rather complicated, expensive operations. A holding corral needs to be set up so that the horses that have been captured have a safe place to stay until trucks come to take them away. A helicopter is often used to do the roundup. It places metal gates in a semi-circle, then adds wings to the semicircle, making a wide chute so that the horses will run down the chute and then be trapped in the semicircle. As the helicopter starts moving the wild horses towards the chute, a couple domestic horses will lead the way, and wild horses will follow them in. The gates are closed, and the wild horses are loaded onto trailers and taken to the holding corral, where they are separated by sex.

These are some of the extra gates that can be used for the corral that the helicopter sets up. The cost for managing the BLM wild horse and burro project in fiscal year 2007 was more than $38 million (BLM fact sheet).

Here are some of the beautiful horses that have been captured. They are part of the Sulphur Herd Management Area, and apparently have quite a bit of Spanish blood in them. This makes them highly desired by some buyers, partly because only three wild herds have this characteristic. This Spanish blood is traced back to horses that the first Spanish explorers brought with them in the 1500s.

The horses in this herd come in a variety of colors, from dun, buckskin, grulla, bay, black, sorrel, palomino, and various roans (blue, strawberry, red).

Other characteristics include ears that curve in like a bird's beak, a dorsal stripe, bi-colored mane and tail, tiger-striped legs, and occasional chest barring (BLM info sheet).

This foal started drinking off any mare that would let her. Many of the mares and foals had paired up after an evening in the holding corral, but a couple still were wandering about.

Here's the hay truck to keep the horses well fed. By yesterday morning they had gathered more than 200 wild horses. The desired herd size is 135-180, so clearly the population is far above what it should be. The BLM specialist estimated that more than 500 might be in the HMA.

The horses will be taken to an adoption facility, where they will be checked out by a veterinarian, given vaccinations, dewormed, and have a blood sample taken. Some of the horses will be chosen to be returned to the herd to maintain the genetic characteristics that are deemed desirable. The others will be prepared for adoption, which will occur about a month after they've been captured.

According to the BLM specialist, only about 50-60% of the young horses will be adopted at the first facility. The ones that are left will be shipped further east, and eventually most of the horses from this herd are adopted. Extra horses from other herds are often not so fortunate.

Thinking about the number of horses in just this one herd management area roundup multiplied by the numerous herd management areas boggles my mind. There are a lot of horses up for adoption every year, and the number won't slow down any time soon. The number of people adopting horses has decreased for a number of reasons: higher fuel and feed costs, urban sprawl, and many horse lovers already have as many horses as they can afford. 

What happens to the left over horses? Some are offered for sale, while others are taken to BLM long-term holding facilities, where our tax dollars go to pay for these horses to graze on public lands until they die, usually 10 to 25 years after they are placed there. So many horses are being taken to these areas that the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Program has the majority of its budget going to these holding facilities, which means less money going for the roundups and adoptions. If wild horses aren't rounded up, major ecological damage will result, with water holes trampled, insufficient feed for native animals, and excessive erosion. Nevertheless, the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act puts many limitations on what can be done with wild horses. This is a situation that needs some more attention and creative answers. 

Caves in the United States

Caves are found in every state in the United States, with over 44,000 recorded caves in the 48 contiguous states (Culver et al. 1999). Where are these caves?

The map above shows the karst areas of the U.S. in green. Karst is a type of terrain that includes limestones, dolomites, and gypsum. These rocks are soluble, and caves, sinkholes, and underground drainages are common features. Nearly one-quarter of the U.S. is comprised of karst. Looking at the map above, you might guess that Florida has the most caves because it has the most karst. But just because karst is present does not mean that a cave is present. In many cases, the rock is soluble, but the water table is so high that the caves are flooded and can only be entered by highly trained cave divers, or the caves are still forming and are not large enough for humans to enter. 

This second map, made by Culver et al., shows a dot for every cave by county. So if a county has ten caves, there will be ten dots randomly placed in that county. These caves may be found in karst, but also could be lava tube caves, talus caves, or other types of caves. What is obvious in this map is that there are some sections of the country that are just filled with caves, like the middle part of Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, and others. The desert southwest doesn't have as many caves, but it still has quite a few black dots.

When I headed to Kentucky last week, it was with the knowledge I was heading towards cave central. Kentucky is home to the longest cave in the world, Mammoth Cave, which stretches over 360 miles with more passageways still being found. My brother offered to take us to one of the smaller caves in the state, and I couldn't resist.

The trip to a cave almost always includes a hike to the entrance. Sometimes this hike can be grueling, involving many miles, rough terrain, poisonous plants, unpleasant weather, and obnoxious mosquitoes. Fortunately, on this fine fall day, the weather was great and we followed a trail most of the way.

The entrance was huge, with large boulders providing good perches as we looked off into the Kentucky woods. We put on our helmets and headlamps and got ready to enter the large, dark void.

This cave, called Wind Cave, is about 1.3 miles in length. It was formed by water dissolving the limestone rock. Water still flows through parts of the cave, but because Kentucky has had a drought this last year, my brother didn't think we would get too wet. I was skeptical. In my experience, I nearly always get wet and muddy in Midwest caves.

One of the first passages we went into was a canyon-like passage. The walls were fairly smooth and dry. I enjoyed the walking passage, because many of the caves in the area where I live are small and require lots of crawling.

Eventually the canyon passage got smaller and it was time to squeeze through a little hole. You can see some graffiti to the right of the hole. Unfortunately some people don't respect caves and leave trash or paint stupid things on the cave walls. They don't think about the cave being a home.

Caves are home to a variety of cave biota. Squeezing provides the opportunity to be very close to the cave surfaces, and then it's easier to see some of the creatures that make the cave their home, like this cave cricket. Notice the extremely long back legs and antennae, which help the cricket find its way around the totally dark cave. We saw lots of crickets--some cracks had about 15 together. 

In addition to crickets, we also saw this neat looking spider, along  with flies, moths, and millipedes. Water flowing into the cave provides nutrients for these cave creatures.

Back in the main passageway, we can see that the water has been flowing through the cave for a long time to dissolve away this much rock. 

Eventually the ceiling got lower and we had to stoop walk. We also came to mounds of sand, places where the water has slowed and deposited the finer sediments.

And then we got into another crawling passage. We found many side passages going off from the main trunk passage. Basically smaller drainages are emptying into a larger drainage, but instead of happening in rivulets and gullies up on the surface, it's occurring underground.

Some passages got even tighter, requiring some nearly contortionist moves to get past the ninety-degree turns. (Can you see the foot and leg in the photo?) To make things more complicated, water was flowing and bubbling up on the bottom of the passage. I was right about getting wet!

It was a fun trip, and it felt great to be underground again. I always enjoy the silence and mysterious nature of caves. Are there still more passageways to be found? How much bigger will the cave get over time as the water keeps dissolving away more rock? How is it connected to the surface, and will it be impacted by surface activities? What else lives in the cave? I always leave a cave with more questions than I went in with!

If you'd like to learn more about caves, a good place to start is the National Speleological Society website.