Trail K: All right, we're back. We we look a little different today. We're all remote. We ⁓ we decided to do a remote podcast today because we wanted ⁓ to have a guest on we wanted to visit with Jenny Luciette. Did I get your name right? Was it pretty good? If you had any idea how long I practiced that this morning, you would you'd be shocked. I go I Googled it. I like went through the little pronunciations, you know, where they play it back in your speaker. I was like, I'm gonna I'm gonna try. Jenny Lesieutre: That that was perfect. Brady Miller: Yes, nice job, Trail. Jenny Lesieutre: That is fantastic. I am impressed. Trail K: I'm gonna try to get this right for once. ⁓ I don't know why. I mean, my my name's Kreitzer. You'd think I would pick up on on names like that a little easier, but ⁓ I worked at it pretty hard. But yeah, we we had you about a year ago. ⁓ is it it's been a it's been about a year, right? We we talked wild horses. Jenny Lesieutre: About a year and a half actually. It was December two years ago. Yeah. I saw Brady recently, but haven't seen you two in a while. Trail K: Right. Right. So we wanted to get a chance to Yeah. Brady Miller: Yeah, we we had a long conversation at Sheep Show. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ Yeah, it was great. We had a presentation out there and and really it turned out really well. It was very well attended and some pretty high level people there, surprisingly. Yeah. Yeah. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah, lot a lot of great questions too on that too, when like we could ask questions to you guys and you did phenomenal, as did everyone else, and it was very important topic. This is what this topic is about today too. Trail K: Did you did you have a booth at Sheep Show or were you just doing presentation? Jenny Lesieutre: Well, I was working with ⁓ several different booths ⁓ throughout. ⁓ but they had come to us asking to set up one of the presentations and there was four of us on there, ⁓ professor from UNR, ⁓ folks that worked up on the Sheldon years ago when there was a big issue there with horses, and ⁓ another gentleman from Endow. So It was it was just it was a good panel and and it went super well. I was I was thankful Brady was there. I was thankful a lot of people were there. Trail K: Watch Gotcha. So yeah, I think the the reason we wanted to have you on today was just to do kind of a catch up and find out. ⁓ I think there's been a lot more awareness, you know, people talking about wild horses and burrows and kind of where we're at. ⁓ I think we were all optimistic when we we last spoke to you and we had you and Joel in office in what, you know, kind of a direction maybe we'd be able to move the move the needle in a positive direction. So I guess part of it was you just I just wanted to catch up and find out like where we're. Jenny Lesieutre: Ooh. ⁓ Trail K: Where we're at? What's the last year been like? Has there been, you know, any kind of political movement? What are we what are we working on? Where are the numbers at? And and just kind of get an update on things. Jenny Lesieutre: Yeah, ⁓ you know, I'll start with the numbers. Last time we talked, ⁓ we had the March twenty twenty-five numbers out, the March twenty twenty six numbers came out and you know, not positive. ⁓ we were up by twelve thousand horses this last year. You know, I mean it's it's always a population estimate. I mean, you guys do that with wildlife and and we see it all the time with horses. So Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ you know, it it's it saddens me when I see this because we're looking at about eighty five thousand five hundred just in BLM alone. You know, so when we're talking Nevada Trail K: Okay. Jenny Lesieutre: as a whole, ⁓ you add in the other four to six thousand they're estimating on state lands, you look at the tribal lands, you know, I'm sure there's a couple more horses back on Sheldon, that kind of stuff. Likely we've got probably over a hundred thousand horses just in about alone that are feral astray, wild, whatever you want to call them. So, you know, at the end of the day, ⁓ the ones that are suffering are the horses and absolutely the wildlife. We we have more horses in Nevada than we do mule deer. And that has got to drive you know, folks that like wildlife, hunters, recreationists, sportsmen, whoever. Just insane. So so there's the negative side, you know, and and we're gonna see this. We've seen it go up and down for almost fifty five years now. ⁓ because it has been driven by emotion. But this is where folks like you come in. ⁓ boy I tell you what, after We did that podcast down there that December. It really kind of exploded, you know, between conservation groups. We pulled a big group together. I think you guys kind of saw some of those emails. ⁓ we had over 120 organizations, you know, from hardcore conservation groups to the Navajo Nation. ⁓ many, many sportsmen, et cetera, people that didn't necessarily really sit down and have a discussion, where everybody coming together was on the same page. So the grassroots effort has exploded. And and we're seeing that I was kind of laughing, you know, just a few minutes ago with Trail before we got on. The activists, the hardcore activists, ⁓ in my opinion, are panicking. They're spending a lot of money doing nothing for the animals, doing nothing for the conservation of our rangelands, doing nothing for anything, except saying, you know, let ⁓ be free, be unicorns and rainbows. They're in perfect health. And they're not. I mean, they're not. It's not realistic. And we've got a lot of people. So I think jumping way ahead, because, you know, gosh. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: I can't even tell you how many different media sources, different podcasts, ⁓ et cetera, that I've been on since since you guys really opened that door. ⁓ but ⁓ I did go to DC, gosh, I guess it's about three weeks ago, ⁓ which was fantastic. ⁓ we had a great gal from a conservation consultant that has credentials and set up some incredible meetings with East Coast people. You know, look, we're 10 Western states with 100 votes in the Senate, 435 in Congress, and we're trying to just to help them understand between what reality is and what the lunacy of allowing a law to be driven just by emotion. Trail K: Okay. Right. Jenny Lesieutre: And so, you know, I'm not gonna name any names or anything like that, but currently it is looking like we've got ⁓ a couple representatives in Congress and several in Senate that are on high level ⁓ committees that are a hundred percent behind really understanding the critical state we're in. So ⁓ five days in DC, ⁓ Trail K: Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Jenny Lesieutre: spent time with different resource committees, ⁓ appropriations committees, other folks that we met, you know, for different after hour stuff. so it's a step forward. Is an it it it's not an easy step. but we are discussing, you know, several different things ⁓ of what Trail K: Right. Jenny Lesieutre: We can be able to do because at the end of the day, all of us, you know, the hundreds of thousands of people that follow you alone, plus everybody else's followers, ⁓ understand that we we've got to come to a sensible solution, and it doesn't mean doing anything with the law, anything with the act, it means following the act as written. I think we discussed this last time as there's two writers, one on Department of Interior and one on Department of Agricultural, that really tie the hands of folks that are trying to do what's right for everything. So I can get into some more, but you know, shoot some questions. Trail K: Right. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. It's ⁓ I mean it's like when we had we had Dan Gates in with ⁓ Coloradins for responsible wildlife management and and it I mean it almost sounds verbatim. It's like the same you have you have activists, right, that are essentially told, you know, these are your talking points. You know, they don't know the ins and outs of, you know, the the the further, right? Like what actually is happening on the ground. They show up and they're a loud voice and it's it's verbatim, say this, you know. Jenny Lesieutre: Yep. Trail K: ⁓ and the other thing, the other thought that I had as you were talking is I think, you know, we're we're human nature, we want things to happen like that, right? We want things quick, especially sportsmen. We want to see more mule deer, but want more elk, more native wildlife on the landscape. And I think we expect, you know, real results real quick. And I think reality is, you know, I've worked for the government and I know how slow that goes. It's a slow burn. It I mean, it takes forever. There's so much red tape and You know, you have to have the right person on the right day. And I don't know. I'm I'm optimistic to hear you say that you had good meetings and that there's, you know, legislators and congressmen that are listening and, you know, maybe their ears are are perking up and you know, you can say what you want about the current administration, but it's probably the best opportunity that we've got in the next three years to to make something happen. So it's good to know that, you know, you're making your efforts to get back there and, you know, rally for it. And, you know, I'm glad that we could be a small part and, you know, raising raising awareness for it. But ⁓ What are they so so I was looking at numbers today? ⁓ I was I was curious. ⁓ how many how many horses I I know that we we spoke earlier, I read some emails. It sounded like they were doing some gathers this year. How many did they actually remove off the landscape? And is do you feel like the BLM is feeling more pressure to remove more animals? Jenny Lesieutre: You know, I know that they are and and and it's no different every year. I think one of the biggest critical things to talk about is simple math. ⁓ we were at appropriate management levels today, like we were in 2007, we were near that, we would only need to gather and remove anywhere from 3,500. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: to 5,000 across the 10 Western states. ⁓ yeah, ⁓ more than feasible because in truth, BLM over the last decade actually has adopted, not sold. We'll we'll not even talk about that right now, but they've adopted more than 5,000 horses a year in the last decade every year. Trail K: Which is feasible. Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: So right there you would hope that the activists ⁓ out there would understand that clear point because this isn't about and and maybe there are some, you know, it it does get frustrating areas, but this isn't about going out there and killing every horse out there like Australia does, right? ⁓ this is about trying to find reasonable and logical solutions. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: So so if we can get down to AML, then that's the numbers we need to focus on. And that would be easy to do even with the two acts that they're trying to pass on humane treatment when there's already 23 laws in place on humane treatment. So Trail K: Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Jenny Lesieutre: So it's it's interesting. Now today they're talking about gathering approximately 14 to 15,000 this fiscal year, which ends October 1st. and that actually, when you're talking 20% of 85,000, that's not even getting the full crop. So we're gonna see a lot of deaths on the range in a lot of areas. Trail K: Gotcha. Jenny Lesieutre: And you know, that to me is the most inhumane, because you guys have seen it. ⁓ these activists have it. They don't go past my backyard off of Highway 580 more than 500 yards to see horses that have now taken up residence where I moved into there weren't any horses on the large end of our state park. Now we have to fight them every time I go on my horse to take a ride. So Trail K: Right. So so how many did they capture this year? And like is it is it an increased number over years past? And and how are they deciding like what areas to capture from? Are they trying to focus on areas that are way over AML and just like are we just barely like skimming the top? Because the thing that's interesting is I hear you talk and I remember having the same feeling last time that we talked. It's like the solution is here. It's real attainable and we can see it. It's like Everybody can look at it and they can all see the solution. It's like if you get this to appropriate management levels, you take this many off the top every year. And then ideally most of those get adopted, you know, through the process, which is what they want to have happen anyway, right? So it's like the system, yeah, not yes and no. But the system is like working, right? We just need to get to that level. And it's like there's this barrier, this hurdle that we can't seem to get through. And it's like, Jenny Lesieutre: Yes and no. Trail K: I mean the solution seems pretty easy to me. It's just like you're gonna have to kill X and out of horses. Jenny Lesieutre: You know, here here's where I stand and here's the discussions we had in DC quite a bit. The whole fact is, is ⁓ the way that the law is written, bottom line, it's adopt what you can. At that point, anything over the age of ten, which aren't adoptable, anybody that owns horses or anything else, you know, you're looking at a real dangerous situation. But Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Anything over the age of 10 that hasn't been adopted is to be sold instantly with a title, you own it, private property, andor euthanized. So so I'll give a call out right now. You know, all of these activists they say they've got a million followers plus. across the United States, many of those aren't in the United States, but let's just talk the United States. ⁓ we wouldn't have a single problem and no horse would need to be euthanized or sold without limitation. If they would just step up to the plate, like now what is the majority, and do their part, either work and resource rehabilitation on our lands, whether it's putting in guzzlers, seeding areas, That have been burned and aren't already being overused, those sort of things. Either put your money where your mouth is, do something. You keep saying you save all these horses. Show me the numbers. Show me the numbers. Show all of us the numbers. Show your own followers the numbers. It's BS, it's all about a paycheck, because not a dime of what they bring in are they doing anything with, except. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Doing fertility control on herds that are four times over, which do not remove a single animal. So w why is it okay to use a rifle to shoot an animal in the ass with a big old 10-gauge needle that's not going to do anything if it's pregnant is not going to remove a single animal? Than it is for the conservation end of how we utilize, you know, we sportsmen, you sportsmen, utilize, you know, the resources on the land. It's there's a resource value to that. So so I think that's the most frustrating thing for me is once you start talking about the big picture, this isn't about the horse. This is about one grazing animal that's overpopulated, that the other 900 species of wildlife are feeling those effects. But yet those wildlife are all at basically their appropriate management levels. So it it does take more than myself going to DC. ⁓ it does take every conversation you have with a legislator, and I'm talking to your audience. Bring up, you know, in a realistic logical manner. Trail K: Right. Right. Jenny Lesieutre: that we've got to get them to an appropriate management level or we're going to continue this tit for tat. Because those groups have proven they don't want to have a discussion. They don't want a solution. If there is a solution, their paycheck is gone. Their their marketing efforts, everything else is gone. And I'll say it to their face, I'll say it one-on-one, I'll say it behind the scenes. They know it and we know it. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And the greatest thing is the fact that for the first time in the last, you know, really two to five years, the groups are are stepping up because we're all feeling the effects. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And I own one in my backyard. You guys know that. You know, I'm not a horse hater, but I'm a realistic person when it comes down to this. And every time I get a call that a horse has been hit a mile from my house and is laying on the road with people, you know, screaming at the driver like that was their intention, it it's just it's ludicrous. It's lunacy. Trail K: Yeah. I didn't I didn't think about the business side of it. And you you want you want to think the best of people? Do you want to think that you want to think that intentions are pure? Like if you really love horses and wild horses and your belief is that none of them should be, you know, removed or taken from the landscape or killed, you know, I want to believe that that they truly believe that, that their heart's in that spot. But yeah, I mean, I I I didn't consider the business side of it. It's propping up an entire, you know, income business. for for a lot of people, which which sucks. Because you're also, I mean, you you can flip that around on the other side and you can say, look at all the opportunities that are being lost by, you know, just common sportsmen, right? That want to go out and hunt more mule deer, they to see more elk. They to see more bighorn sheep and antelope on the landscape. You know, cattle ranchers that graze, that raise beef, you know, that are probably losing ⁓ you know, their ability to to to graze as effectively or as long as they could be. And and those guys are producing beef, you know, for for for people to for people to eat. But yeah, I d I didn't really you know, it's it's kind of a I mean, that's kind of a dark you know, a dark thought to think that they're they're motivated by money and business and that's part of the prop, but it's probably true. It just sucks to think that. Jenny Lesieutre: Well, you know, everything there's a business side to everything. ⁓ you know, there's economic ⁓ impacts to everything. And when you look at people, well, just look at a PETA commercial, you know, those people are putting down animals right and left. HSUS, they're putting down animals right and left. What they're showing is an emotional strain on people. So those people, the majority of those people that are donating to those large groups. Trail K: Sure. Yeah. For sure. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: They're doing it, I believe, out of the goodness of their heart. So I'm glad that you said that. ⁓ the hard part is the majority of them aren't really doing their internal research on where that money's going. And that is why it's called a business. It's a huge business. It's a Trail K: Mm-hmm. Right. Jenny Lesieutre: Hundred million dollar business every year when you start looking at every 501c3 out there calling themselves, you know, a non-profit and we're saving these animals. It's to me, it's waste, fraud, and abuse, and it's not really legal. And you know, there's a really fine line to it. But let's talk the economic impacts. There was a study done by UNR back in 2020 for for honey, and there was, I mean, the Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: economic impact was three hundred and eighty million dollars just here in Nevada alone on the sportsman side of it. And then you start, you mentioned ranchers and farmers. You know, there is a big struggle right now on economic impacts on our food sources. And when you look at the cattle prices alone, it's like, gosh, they're they're the highest ever. These these cattle ranchers are making more money off their cows. What they're not discussing is the fact that their own herds are cut in half because they can't afford the hay to feed those animals, right? I mean Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yep. Jenny Lesieutre: I can remember paying seven bucks a bale of hay for my horse. Now I'm paying 26 to 32 bucks a bale. So you think about that kind of you know crisis that's out there right now. It's it's crazy. And and again, I just had a meeting less than two weeks ago with other folks from DC that came here to Nevada. discussing strictly that, the economic impacts due to one grazing animal. One. You know, and and and these are pencil pushers, these are accountants that, you know, I can remember sitting in DC in 2000, I think it was six, talking to the budget office at the White House and telling them how much it was costing the BLM to feed horses nobody wanted. Trail K: Yeah. Yep. Jenny Lesieutre: And literally with a straight face, they looked at me and said, Well, where in the law does it say we're supposed to feed them for life? This is indiscretionary spending in the millions, tens of millions of dollars that you're doing. So, you know, it's it's hard to separate out the reality of what's going on based on how well these activists have done for 55 years on the emotional end. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: But we're turning that corner and we've turned that corner. I shouldn't say turning, we've turned that corner. Because gosh, even in in the last three years, you start looking at those, you know, social media sites. That are talking about the horses where it was always, you know, again, the unicorns and rainbows, everything's perfect. To you really start looking at those reactions and the comments being made. And right now the realistic people that can think logically and look at the big picture are coming back and saying, no, we've had enough. And that's that's where we're at. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I was gonna I wanted to ask you. So you've you've had some meetings recently in DC and then you just mentioned that you had some people come from from DC. What what are those conversations like as far as, you know, talking to those people? Do their level of understanding, are they open to it? Are they you know, are they argumentative? Do they have an opinion one way or the other? Or I mean Jenny Lesieutre: I the one meeting I talked about regarding economic impacts and and seriously, you know, this is critical. I was actually surprised. I was asked to come to a meeting ⁓ by somebody in in our state government ⁓ and basically was told we really aren't sure what this is about. ⁓ but it has to do with wild horses and it has it and it's a hearing. It was a hearing actually. So to come into that room with three gentlemen, one was from LA and I'm not gonna say the group, but ⁓ and two were from DC and they had done their homework. I mean, there was not any arguments. ⁓ there was a bunch of people in that room that were, you know, focused on the farming and ranching, you know, struggles that are going on. ⁓ you know, and I want to point out that since the act was passed, ⁓ allotments for cattle grazing, livestock grazing, including sheep, ⁓ have gone down. It's 32 to 35 percent less than it was in 71. Trail K: I don't know. Jenny Lesieutre: So it's another false argument that goes on. So that that meeting was probably a four or five hour meeting with very direct questions stating from you know public safety. I had to give the numbers of how many horses that had been hit in our areas that had actually been reported compared to the previous ten years. So the last five years there was over 235 accidents with wild horses and ten 10 years before that, there was 213. Well, to my knowledge, there's also been three human deaths because of that. One recently, closer to you guys, a motorcyclist hit a burrow and died. So, you know, this isn't it this isn't that simple. And you know There's a true public safety issue just by hitting them, but there's also a true public safety issue when people think this is a domestic animal. They're not. And it's very hard for people to comprehend that. So now the other meeting I had Trail K: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When when when when you meet with him ⁓ go ahead, I'll I'll let you finish. Jenny Lesieutre: And I'll do that real quick, wasn't necessarily a great meeting. it was dealing with ⁓ very, very high level ⁓ folks in DC that actually called me and asked to set up a meeting. and they were focused directly on, well fertility control can fix this problem. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And so there was, you know, it it was a pretty intense meeting back and forth. ⁓ but by the end of it, you know, it was what I had said earlier, it doesn't remove a single animal. You're talking if if you're talking that that could possibly work, you're looking at a 20-year long very distinct of 20,000 horses a year getting fertility control tube because by the way if they're already pregnant doesn't do anything for them and 99% of the time that mare's already pregnant by the time they find it. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Come out here to Nevada, I'll show you. You're not gonna find that horse again next year. So, so that one wasn't necessarily the greatest meeting, but the ask for follow-up came through, and within half an hour I received a response back that their team was gonna sit down again and discuss this with the appropriate personnel in DC and agencies and departments. So and then in July I'll be going to function. You know, it's the 250th anniversary and there's a lot of functions going on and was invited to a great function ⁓ in Wyoming that, you know, it is a private event. ⁓ so I'll have the opportunity to likely talk to department heads. and a lot of other people. So so I'm looking forward to that. You know, I'm not gonna go into detail about that, but ⁓ it's happening across the United States. And you know, I think the most difficult thing you set it, Trail, this is the bureaucracy of government. That bureaucracy changes leadership every four to eight years. And so you correct. This is probably the first administration in a long time, I'm gonna say, going back to the Bush administration, that they clearly understand, you know, public lands, land management, ecosystems, wildlife, all of that. Where, you know, we haven't had that that type of focus. So, you know, timing is important. Trail K: Mm-hmm. What when you Jenny Lesieutre: But also the consistent. You know, we are going to have people that will never agree with a single word we say. There's always gonna be that tit for tat. You know, you can throw a thousand white papers at ⁓ But that's not the people we're trying to talk to. It's the people that have boots on the ground. Trail K: Mm-hmm. When when when you're in those meetings, does ⁓ I mean, and they're I would assume, I mean, you lay out the problem, right? So they're asking for you in essence, like we have asked you to kind of lay out the numbers, lay out the problem, population growth. ⁓ you know, earlier today I was looking at some studies. ⁓ I think the University of Wyoming had done one on sage grouse on the effects of sit you know, of ⁓ feral horses on sage grouse, which is not it's not good. Sage grouse in itself are also struggling. ⁓ but but your job is essentially they're asking you, like, lay out the issue, like, why are you here, Jenny? What are you doing you know, what what is your issue? And you kind of lay it out for them. And, you know, like when you lay it out for me or Brady or Lorenzo, like it's pretty clear to see. It's like, okay, we have too many horses, we have all this damage on the landscape. We could get to this point, which we could manage them, but there's like this elephant in the room. Like, what how do we get to that point? do the do they ever come out and say, like, How do we get to that point? Like, do they ever say, like, what do we need to do? Is there anybody that's like offering solutions? Jenny Lesieutre: Yeah. It's funny because most of the I find myself more asking them the question because truthfully this is such a complex issue that nobody realizes how the complexities to it and and the effects of it. So, so I've learned over the past couple years since retiring that really to open up that conversation, I've got to ask the questions. You know, do they know what the law says? It's eight pages long. That one group in DC flat out stated, Well, I don't know a lot about this issue, but somebody told me fertility control is the answer. And Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: For me to sit there and turn around and have to say, you know, fertility control is actually a tool. It's not gonna fix any problem at all. You know, and here's why as quickly as I can at that fifty thousand foot level. Because I'm not talking, you know, grassroots. I'm talking to the highest level people in, you know, pretty big agencies. And so to have what is in DC, you're lucky to get a half hour meeting. So you try talking about one specific issue and do it in half an hour, it's almost impossible. So, you know, I've got a lot of one page paperwork. ⁓ and the the key in this is it is dollars. And when I can sit there and tell like this person, these people that I were talking to, you know, at the end of the day, I can literally tell you that If we follow the act as written and and let's do a 60-day claiming period, let's offer every single horse over the age of 10 to every single 501c group out there right now. Take them. We'll deliver them even because you're going to save money on that end. We'll deliver them. Take those horses over the age of 10. And then you, not you, but them, you don't have to discuss having to put down a horse. or sell without limitation, even though there should be a resource value. We talked about that with a gentleman that you had on before me almost a year and a half ago. You know, we're not India. India doesn't eat cattle or cows or anything like that. But there are countries that rely on it. You know, and that could be a last resort because clearly that's the elephant in the room, you know, in the United States. It is. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: But the fact is is is commercial use of horses isn't illegal in the United States. What's illegal because of the rider on Department of Ag is to sell it commercially. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: So, so here's another one. If we didn't have those 30 or 25 to 30,000 horses sitting in pastures nobody's ever gonna see again, if those weren't in those pastures and we weren't feeding them, I could save you 38 to 40 million dollars in one year. And I'll tell you, when that discussion goes to play, they hear you. You know, that's DC, it's dollars and cents. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: So, you know, but you don't want to kill a horse. Okay, here's a solution to offer it and make everybody step in and take responsibility for where we're at today. Because those activists will not take responsibility. But if you put it out there, take those 25 to 30,000 horses, save them like you say you do, then nothing needs to be euthanized. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And if they can't do that, then they are a part of the issue. And they need to take responsibility and they need to understand that those tools that they keep saying, well, not right now, you can't use that in the law. They need to be used. And once they're used and once we're at appropriate management levels, we're not going to be having to discuss that elephant in the room. Join us. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's just getting it's just getting there. We gotta get there. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: We gotta get there. We were almost there. You guys jumped in and put all these riders on, and now we're four times over. So the responsibility really is on those groups. You know, you can call me a horse hater, you can call me all the names that wish I could show you, you know, the latest posts. But call me all the names you want. But I am realistic. I'm not gonna have a hundred horses in my backyard. Trail K: Mm-hmm. True. I mean I I yeah, I mean I'm I'm a horse hater. I I I I don't like them. I I just I mean I I I I say that with ⁓ in tongue in cheek. I just, you know, for the things that I value, you know, ⁓ native wildlife, native, you know, native healthy landscapes. ⁓ I want to see ranges in good conditions. Jenny Lesieutre: That's crazy. You're gonna come out and ride with me one day. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Absolutely. Trail K: You know, we we are where we are and they are protected under the the act, and I get that. I did a bunch of reading today about the ⁓ the act and just kind of the history of horses in general. But ⁓ yeah, I mean I'm I'm a I'm a bit of a horse hater to the point where it's like I d I don't hate I don't hate the fact that they're on the landscape, but I understand that, but I am at a point where yeah, I'm like ready to like let's euthanize horses. Like let's get ⁓ to a point to where they're manageable. To where we we can see landscapes restored, where we can see native wildlife populations like mule deer and sagegrouse and antelope, you know, start to rebound and do well. ⁓ you know, every everything would be healthier if we could just get to that level. So if that's what it takes to call, you know, if if I'm a horse hater because that's what I want, then yeah, I'm a horse hater. Brady Miller: Yeah, you're a horse hater because they're so much higher than the AML. If it was at the AML, it would be an easy solution here. It'd be like, okay, they're they're here, they can be here, but at that level that is decided what was it a appropriate? Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: Yeah. They'd be cool to see again. How many is too many? I mean, you know, I every time I get on my horse, you know, I'm trying to well, I'm there, but I've been having to leg up my horse to do this cattle drive that we're about to go on, a five day cattle drive that we've got fifty five guests that come in and pay for it so that they can see our public lands, our wide open lands that come from all over the world. So that they can see wildlife. and possibly see some horses. Well, the last three years of this ride, we haven't seen any wildlife except snakes and couple rabbits and those sort of things. Pack rats, you know, stuff like that, every once in a while, but all you're seeing is horses. Now I sit there and ride every day and I'm riding up the mountain on our Virginia range up here in northern Nevada. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And I used to come across herds, you know, or large bands of mule deer constantly, over and over. I've seen two mule deers in the last three and a half months on my rides, but I've seen three to four hundred horses. And I'm just talking, you know, within a ten, fifteen mile radius of where I lived and used to see a thousand laying in an alfalfa field at the road. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Every once in a while we'll see a small band of maybe a dozen. Every once in a while. ⁓ I put up a post two days ago. I'm riding down the beach, and for the first time in three years, a bald eagle came flying down into the water fishing, basically. And I had the opportunity to pull out my camera and take a video of it. And for me, I was so excited about that. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And then realized after the camera went off that ⁓ my god, I used to see you know juvenile bald eagles riding right outside my back door, and pears out and and nests, you know, that were active. They're not active anymore. And so again, you said it at the opening. We're human, we expect to be able to blink our eyes and everything's fine. And to sit there and really have Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: that notion of my god where where is where have they all gone where is that balance and I'm you know I see a feral horse out on our state park now and and I I could be called a horse hater because it infuriates me. We had a park that was in pristine condition, you know, less than 10 years ago to now the Trail K: Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: The plants on there, the majority of the plants are either cheatgrass, white top, or halogeten. And I'm waiting for a lightning strike to hit that because it will go up in flames. So the whole aspect, everybody's like, ⁓ well, the horses eat the cheatgrass. No, they don't. I can show you pictures right now where our hills, and it's barely June, are solid cured cheatgrass. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yeah, curious. Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: The stage rush is gone. I mean, it's not completely gone, but in comparison to less than five years ago, it's outrageous. So it's it it it's bad. We're past the critical point. We're not hitting it. We are past it. And we have to do something. And unfortunately. What's that? Yes. Trail K: Yeah. Yeah. Have you? Brady Miller: Can can can I drop can I drop some quick numbers? Because Trello knows I'm a big number guy. I wanna give people the like the the numbers right now so they can see drastic this is. So earlier this year we talked about the March 1st, 2026, they released those BLM numbers. So like a couple months ago I went and updated an article on Go Hunt. The c it's called the Colossal Backlash of Feral Horses on Wildlife. And I'll republish it at the homepage here after probably at this podcast. ⁓ But yeah, as of March first, twenty twenty-six, the total number of horses across all the tent Western states, sixty-one thousand five hundred and twenty-three, boroughs twenty-three thousand nine hundred and forty-three, total eighty-five thousand four hundred and sixty-six with the max AML of twenty-five five ninety-two. Jenny Lesieutre: That went down. AML went down. Brady Miller: Yeah. And then you just compare that roughly to twenty fifteen. So yeah, ten, eleven years, ⁓ that total number of feral horses in boroughs was at fifty-eight thousand one fifty. So eleven years, it's gone up to eighty-five thousand four hundred sixty-six. And then if you go down further here, which I find is very alarming, so just in Nevada alone, ⁓ that population from twenty fifteen to twenty sixteen, the Feral horse and burrow population increased by 40.9%. And that's just on BLM. So, like I said before, that number is probably a lot larger and is definitely over the population of our total mule deer herd in Nevada. But that same sort of time frame, again, it mule deer population decreased by 27.3%. Jenny Lesieutre: Right. It is. And there you go, you know, 60 70% difference. And you're talking the high and the low. You know, that's that's crazy. And I'm sitting here right now, which I'll send you the history of our elk, antelope, mule deer, since nineteen ninety one, I have it, in a spreadsheet for you guys. ⁓ I've been meaning to send it to you, and to see. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: That those numbers continuously on our natural wildlife has been going down since 1991, and our horse population continues to go up a non-natural resource or wildlife or whatever you want to call it, because it's not wildlife. It is a domestic animal. So numbers, you know, let's talk dollars. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ you know, last two years the budget's been almost $142 million, right? Nearly that. The last two or three years, actually. I want to say last three years. ⁓ when I was doing the budget in DC, it was less than 30 million. So there's so much more that that money could be utilized for. Trail K: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And and when you're seeing an increase in numbers when Trail and everybody else has said, you know, look, we're ⁓ my god, we're gonna gather 14,000 horses this year from BLM. That's not even taking care of the full crap. Just do a simple 20%. You know, so what is happening? You know, where are the numbers gonna be next year and are those numbers gonna decrease because of an inhumane starvation or lack of water? Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: That to me is criminal because I'd be in jail if they that was the case in my backyard. I'd be in federal prison. So why isn't the govern government being held to the same standard? You know, manage your pets. Trail K: Yeah. Brady Miller: Yeah, yeah. The the up the other ⁓ the the other figure I like to point out too, and I don't have the twenty twenty three to twenty twenty six numbers, but Nevada Department of Wildlife put out a graphic a few years ago in our ⁓ big game status book that is very alarming. It basically compares ⁓ Nevada's native big game animal equivalents to feral horses and burrows in terms of biomass. So from two thousand eight to twenty two thousand twenty-two, there's almost three times as many feral horses. and boroughs in Nevada than all native ungulate equivalents combined. Jenny Lesieutre: All combined native antelope, mule deer, sheep, all of that combined. Think about that. I mean, how is that? Take the human out of it. How is that fair to every single animal out there? You know, and and they don't even talk about the damage that's being done by on the fowl, you know. I mean, the sage grouse. God forbid when. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: the sage grouse becomes an endangered species. It's right there. We know it. And we know what the number one effect scientifically over and over is. And that's just one other native bird that's being destroyed. Trail K: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Do do you know what happened around 2012 that would cause so on a graphic I have that I pulled all this data sourced from the BLM horse and borough dat program data, ⁓ basically 1996 all the way to 2012, the total feral horse and borough population across all 10 Western states was relatively flat, right around 40,000. From twenty twelve to now twenty twenty six, it's exponentially skyrocketing. And getting higher. Like what was making that stay flat for so long to now jump at an exponential rate from basically twenty twelve to twenty twenty six? Jenny Lesieutre: So my opinion, because there's no scientific proof behind it, is look at the administrations that came in. I mean, great a great example, Bush administration was there, they brought those numbers down during that administration, the eight years they were in there. ⁓ the next administration came in. Obama, the head of BLM, said, we're only gonna gather what we can adopt. These activists all of a sudden work for adoption anymore. Those adoption numbers declined to less than 3,000 ahead per year adopting because of the social media. And that's one of the biggest issues, I think, has created this Walt Disney world of Wonderland. Brady Miller: Mm. Jenny Lesieutre: Is social media puts out so much misinformation and legislators are worried about their constituents, right? They're worried about their numbers. We just had a primary yesterday here. ⁓ they nobody talked about the horses, nobody talked about wildlife, nobody talked about the damage to our rangelands here in Nevada when they were running for their office. Nobody did. I can say that now because the numbers are already in, right? The votes are already in. But trust me, some of those people that are likely to be winners will be talking about it. And that's the whole point, is there's this big bad boogeyman out there and You know, you're trying to really discuss as a politician, trying to serve everybody because that's really what your role is. And you're never gonna please everybody. You're it's just not gonna happen. So you avoid the conversations you can, that's gonna dip you up or down. And you talk about, you know, basic economics, food prices, all of this stuff, and then once they're in office, they can start talking about it. Trail K: Sure. Right. Jenny Lesieutre: I ran into our congressman Mark Yamaday just last Sunday. And he literally said, you know, I'm not gone yet. I got a lot more things I can do not being a congressman. Whatever that meant, we'll see. But But it's it's I I believe that social media plays a huge part in it. The huge misinformation that's out there plays a huge part in it. And basically the deflections that these activists don't ever come up with a solution. And again, back in DC, I've that's one of the questions I asked them. Well, what's their solution? I know they're knocking on your door every day. And trust me, every single legislator legislator I talked to during that five days and committees were saying they're tired of them knocking on the door. They are at a point where they know what they're saying's not factual. And a lot of them are starting to turn around and say, what's your solution? And the minute they do that, those people are going away. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Because they're going after the legislators that don't understand what's going on. And that's why we focused our meetings with East Coast people to better educate them on what's going on in the West. Because they're still a landlord of that property. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. When you talk to these advocates, what I mean, did do they ever show any kind of care or concern about any other wildlife or the landscape? Is that even part of the the conversation or is it just a hard line? Like we do not want to see any horses, you know, euthanized. And what and what do and even further, what do they think will happen? Cause I mean, this is a this is a boom bust. If if it keeps going, right? So this is a well, I mean, ultimately what what happens? I mean, I I've got a bat a little bit of a background in wildlife management and you know, you y you have all the classic studies, you look at the Kayabab deer herd and kind of what happened. We grew that herd, it blew up, eventually they, you know, starved to death, ate themselves out of house and home, and the population tanked and you know, they're trying to rebound. I mean, what do they think will ultimately happen? Because that's what's gonna happen, is you're gonna get to critical I mean, if we're not at critical mass already. It doesn't I mean, you it looks like it's are continuing to grow. I mean, based on what Brady just said, we're up, what, twelve thousand animals in a year? ⁓ you know, you keep growing at that rate, eventually you're gonna have a massive bust, right? You're gonna have massive starvation. You know, they're gonna die of thirst, the rangelands will be nuked, they're not gonna come back. Like, do they legitimately just have no sense of the outcome? To is it really just Disneyland for them all the time? Jenny Lesieutre: Even yesterday. ⁓ four or five people, you know, the same four or five people. The horses aren't overpopulated. Look at all that green grass out there. ⁓ look how healthy they look. Yeah, healthy right on the freeway because they're eating people's garbage. I got pictures of that, Brady, I said I was gonna send to you. I still can and will. ⁓ Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Mm. Sand. Trail K: We we we actually have a picture. Lane Lane that works in our office today snapped one just outside of Vegas. I'll pull it up here in a sec, but it's a picture of a road sign that says, Do not feed horses and burrows. Jenny Lesieutre: Well, our bird nesting area doesn't allow you to walk in there between February and and September and yet you go out there today and there's twenty people out there walking around. You know, people it's that sign's not for me. So so part of that's kind of my fault because they know how to really get you emotionally and when somebody is talking just total nonsense. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: all of a sudden it becomes a discussion about the horse. And just yesterday on next door, excuse me, this one person is saying, you know, you're a horse hater, you're all that stuff. All that stuff we've already talked about. And ⁓ actually Joel brought this up to me. He goes, you know, what about this family thing or breaking up family bands of horses and mom and dad and they should be together and all of this stuff. He said, Do any of you own a dog? Trail K: All of them own a all of all of them own a dog. I guarantee you, all of ⁓ own a dog. Jenny Lesieutre: Have you ever had a cat? Yeah. So what about their family? And what about that poor chicken of the organic eggs that you raise? Never even got a chance to meet its mother. And I'll tell you what, I put that on yesterday. On next door, and they went dark. No comment. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: ⁓ yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: You know, what about the dogs and the cats and the goats and the sheep and the pigs and the hogs and the snakes and what about their families? What about the rice grass, you know, that has now been taken over by cheat grass? What about that family of plants? You know, so so that's a lot of again every day for me is in education. You know, everybody I talk to is going to be a different conversation. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And it's realizing what are their their key points in that conversation. You say, you know, Trail, you're a horse hater. I'm a snake hater. Man, I'll chop a head off a snake any second. You know, but there's a lot of people that love them. Matter of fact, one activist that comes out and takes pictures is constantly picking up snakes out there. ⁓ it's crazy to me. But Trail K: Yeah. Mm. Jenny Lesieutre: You gotta get out of your box and and you're absolutely right. And that is, I think, the thing, you know, even Joel and I have had arguments. Stop calling it a horse. It's a grazing animal. Stop defining it because that horse is a picture that everybody loves. I mean, they hate the hogs in in in in Texas, they hate the pythons in Florida. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: They hate all those invasive species there, but the minute you say horse, everybody thinks of the pretty pony that's a little girl wanted. You know? So so the the you've really got to separate those facts. And that comes down to me. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: Yep. Yeah, and y and you know you notice too, anytime they ever throw a picture of a feral horse on any sort of publication, it's always this pretty looking one, great condition. They never like you're saying, they never actually show the one that is fifteen miles in the middle of the BLM on some mountain range that is how they all look not healthy at all, very sick, starving. And it's just it's crazy how they portray ⁓ all the time. Jenny Lesieutre: I it i it's not. Brady Miller: These people don't get off a a paved road and go drive around in obviously we're here in Nevada. Don't go drive around in Nevada and actually see the levels that it is. If you want to go down a gravel road, everywhere you look to the left, you look to the right, you drive two miles, there'll be the same number of horses out on that landscape. You I've hunted at nine thousand, ten thousand feet in Nevada and there's feral horses all the way up there. There's feral horses all the way down. Every basin you go into has five, ten, fifteen horses living in it. And I say a lot, I can be hated for it again, which I'm fine for. Like, yeah, managing wildlife, there's a lot of different things that go on. Like, it's very hard to, but like we control, you know, tag numbers here in the state to do that. We can can we can kind of control seeding and stuff. We can't control mother nature with how much rain we get and how much feed on landscape. But I guarantee you, instantly we can improve all the wildlife in Nevada if we got rid of horses to the appropriate levels. And just if we did that one year. in two or three years, we're gonna see a skyrocket of actual native wildlife. That is the one thing instantly we can do in this state that's gonna benefit all native wildlife. That is the thing we can control, but we don't do it. And we have a level we're supposed to maintain and they don't want to frickin touch it. Jenny Lesieutre: Yeah. Yeah. There is one herd management area here in Nevada, the Reverley herd management area, which is kind of outside Tonopah. ⁓ it they are forced, the BLM is forced by a court order to keep that at appropriate management levels. And the minute it goes over, they have to remove them back down. And I can tell you, we had a gather right the year before I left. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ we only had to remove, I think, 200 horses. I could be wrong, it doesn't matter. But as we're sitting there at the trap site, and the public's at their seated area, with you know, basically, you know, small cliffs behind me, as I looked up, there's a herd of sheep. So at appropriate management levels, you're gonna have that luxury of seeing wildlife out there surviving as well. But the minute you see one of those skinny horses, everything else is already gone. They're dead or they've moved. Because one, there's no forage. Nevada gets what, seven to ten inches of rain a year? Something like that. So water. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: They can die within forty-eight hours. Starvation on a horse that's eight hundred to twelve hundred pounds, give them a year. A year of starving to death is disgusting. And here's those pretty pictures of all those nasty horses at the dump, everything else. every day I have to drive past. Going north to Reno or coming south, that one of these large groups put up a sign of that beautiful little pony on the picture. And what's going to be funny to see is a friend of mine is using a sign right now because it was the primaries. ⁓ and that sign is gonna become we'll pay for it out of a pack. that will become a billboard of what reality is, of what our horses look like. And it'll be right next to the one you're gonna see driving south. So heads up, I just I just let them know. You know, we're gonna show reality while you show Walt is Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. E ev even driving on the ninety five from Beatty, you know, going through Goldfield all the way to Tonopah, it's dangerous to be on a road to be on a road and to be on that motorcycle guy like through that section is dangerous, especially at night. Like it's a scary road to drive. They're all right on the ditch, right right off the road. And that's how many more of them are we not seeing, like I always say, get off the road and there's ten times more. Like literally, no exaggeration. Mm-hmm. Trail K: Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: That's where that got back to go blast. Yeah. Well, and how many are be being reported too? A lot of these accidents aren't even getting reported. ⁓ you know, and and it's just these activists, they don't have any understanding of animal husbandry. So just last week, in the middle of the day, right on our main residential street, a horse got hit. ⁓ and of course, the blame went to well, the horses were coming down our Little Washa Lake and animal husbandry and in in the horse world. You have a lead mare and you have the lead stallion in that band. And what the lead mayor does is it it moves the group, their band, to find food and water. That's her job. Okay? She's she's the grandma of the bunch. So that band moves with her and they stay tight. They're band animals. They stay in a group. So that stays tight. Well, the lead stud stays back. It's watching what's coming up. It's seeing if there's other studs coming, trying to steal his harem, that kind of stuff. He stays back. So what happened in this section? I'm a hundred percent convinced. I know I wasn't driving, but there's no doubt in my mind. Those horses jumped down the road. Jumped off the knoll, into the road, jumped down into Little Washoe to get their drink of water. That stud was up there. And if you're driving any car and you see a big band of animals going past you, what do your eyes do? You're gonna follow it. And so that person's driving the speed limit, following it, and that stud, and I know what happened because a friend of mine was right behind it when it happened. That stud jumped right down into the road. Trail K: Yeah. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: And in that split-second reaction, the car hit. The car hit broke both his back legs. He stumbled down to the lower area. And now you got a bunch of people because it's the middle of the day going, ⁓ my god, poor animal. And Trail K: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: This is the basics. You don't see them coming and and especially not at night. Tell me you're gonna see a brown, black, or or sorrel horse at night. You don't see them until the eyes flash. I've got a video that I can dig up of a cop hitting them on Highway 50, hitting three horses on Highway 50. You know, as you're seeing headlight after headlight coming towards you. They don't care. People are stopping, they're licking salt off the off. Trail K: Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: the roads, things like that, they're standing and they're not moving. You can lay on your horn and they don't blink here. So it's they are the benefit. Trail K: Because they're domestic. I ⁓ I went down a rabbit hole today because I think last time you guys were on the podcast, I'd asked you what you referred to and whether you refer to them as feral horses or wild horses. I was curious. I went back and did a little a little deep dive. And ⁓ you know, people like to say, ⁓ well, American had we had wild horses. Like, you know, it was a a native native species. So I was looking into it. It looks like the ⁓ the last native horse, these cali Cabaline horses, which evolved in North America. It looks by pale paleolo ⁓ can't speak paleon paleontological evidence shows that they died out in the lower 48 at the end of the last ice age. It says by all available credible evidence indicates that free roaming horses in North America today are the direct descendants of domesticated horses. it said even I thought this was interesting, actually. It says, even though people call them free ranging wild horses instead of feral horses, ⁓ ⁓ the distinction is primarily because the BLM refers to them as wild horses because Congress defined them as such. Brady Miller: Hmm. They're feral horses. Hundred percent. Jenny Lesieutre: Exactly. Exactly. They're feraled or the state calls them astray. So you got three. Wild, because of a name and a law. Feral, because that's what they are. You know, they're not and and trust me, those horses in the ice age were the size of a dog. And had hooves that were like deer. So they're not the same animal. Trail K: They're fair horses. Right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they were small. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ and then you got astray because the state calls them astray. Because they literally state they were let loose. They derive from a domestic horse that was on open range or open range, just like in Wyoming. Fence, you know, no fences. You've got an allotment, gather them, you know, after the allotment season's up. You're not gonna gather every animal. They get away. So Trail K: Yeah. Cut loose. Jenny Lesieutre: So it it and that is again one of those deflections. ⁓ they're wild, you know, it says right here, they're wild because somebody made it up and everybody's believing them. You know, you say it more than a hundred times, people are gonna believe it. And that's what's occurred in this program. Wild horse Annie never thought in a million years that she's I've got people that were friends of hers that are still alive. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: That said by 1978, she looked at them and said, I made the biggest mistake of my life with this. She was a rancher's wife. They raised cattle. You know, her job was a secretary, but her family were ranchers. You forget that. And it was never about the rangelands or don't touch the horses. It was about not poisoning water holes and transporting them in a more humane manner. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: That was Wild Horse Annie. And so what people think she was is today is a flat out lie. She'd be rolling in her grave. You know, so it it's just again, it's just frustrating. It's it's hard for me after doing this for so long not to have that I'm pissed off. I'm pissed. It's every conversation is the same. Start from ground zero. Trail K: Yeah. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Right. Jenny Lesieutre: But you know, I have to take my time to logically understand that not every senator or congressman is gonna know every single law on the books. They're just not going to. That's why they have staffers. That's why they got the Library of Congress. That's why now we do have Grok and things like that. ⁓ Trail K: Mm-hmm. And it and it would it would be hard because I mean I spent I spent probably an hour today on the BLM's website, wild horse website, reading through it. And I mean, it's it's all you know it's all contraceptives, it's it's ⁓ I mean it's very pro wild horse, you know, in the sense that like everything's okay, we've got it under control, we're managing to appropriate levels. You know, if there is an issue, then we're gonna we're gonna address it. There's a lot of, you know, vague language in it. But if you I mean, if you didn't know anything about it and you just went to the agency's website, who's, you know, in charge of managing this animal, you would not have the same perspective if somebody like yourself or, you know, a sportsman that's out on the landscape. The perceptions are completely different. If you don't live in that environment, if you're not actively participating, it would be really hard to understand the the ins and outs of what actually is going on. So I mean Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: You know, to to the to the credit of somebody, whoever's done that, I mean, they've done a fairly good job at ⁓ you know, representing it as as roses. Jenny Lesieutre: Well, and and you're right, you know, and and thank you for bringing that up 'cause that'll be my first conversation I have when I head out in July, ⁓ with people that actually have the power of making the truth. Trail K: Ha ha. Yeah, I mean look hey I'm sure you spend a bunch of time on their website, but I would you know, if i i if you if you if you Yeah. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ God, and and forced to update a lot of those pages when I worked there. You know, and and depending on the administration. I mean, we had during the Obama administration, the head of the BLM said we couldn't we couldn't state that a horse was gilded because nobody understands what guilding is. We're gonna tell ⁓ we neuter to them. Well, you don't neuter a horse. You know, no, I'm not gonna sit there and say that because that's now you're making up something. It's called guilding. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. Jenny Lesieutre: Period. If you do if you don't understand it, look it up in the dictionary. It's very easy to do. So yeah, they're still putting out the pretty pictures. They're still covering their butts ⁓ from the boogeyman of look, we're trying fertility control, even though you talk to any specialists on the ground one on one and not, you know, not putting their job up up because they could lose their job. They're gonna tell you. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: They hate doing it, you know, because it doesn't make a difference. And nine times out of ten, by the time that they're ever able to gather that mayor to give her a vaccine, she's already pregnant. That vaccine, all the vaccines out there do nothing for a pregnancy. Now there is a drug that you can in early stages give to the mayor. It's very safe. Have a veterinarian, tell you about it. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: But you can give that drug to where they will abort it. It's kind of like the morning after pill. Whether you're for abortion or not, there's a pill that's legal ⁓ in most of our states. So why do we have last last May 2,500 foals born in captivity in Nevada alone in three facilities? 2500. Trail K: In captivity. Jenny Lesieutre: In captivity. So are they a wild horse still? How are they a wild horse? They've never seen the wall. I don't know. I mean, those are the things people are afraid to talk about, and those are the things we are talking about. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Yeah. Yeah. One of the numbers I looked at today said total total ⁓ fertility control treatments for twenty twenty five was nine hundred and twenty one. Jenny Lesieutre: Well, so you gotta gather them. Why are you giving fertility control? Yeah. ⁓ if they're already pregnant, why are you giving them fertility control? If they've got a fall on the side and they're nursing and they've been out there for a month or two, they're already pregnant. ⁓ Trail K: Sure. But but nine hundred nine hundred and twenty one, that's the that's it, that's the answer. Sure. Yeah, but the that number in itself, nine hundred and twenty one of a population of eighty five thousand, to me is laughable. I mean, what what are we what are we even doing? Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: How yeah. Well, and that was the conversation I said I had that wasn't the greatest conversation was you're not given enough fertility control. I said, Well, first off, you gotta get that animal. There's very there's really no places except for the Virginia Range here in Nevada that you can actually dart And even if you do dart them before they're pregnant, you tell me how you're gonna find ⁓ on two million acres the next year. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: When in Jackson Mountain alone they're all brown, black, or sorrel. There's no color to them. You can't distinguish them differently. And they're they're not migrating animals. They roam freely to where there's food and water. They don't migrate like our natural wildlife do. So you don't even know where they're gonna be at. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Yeah. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: And they just establish themselves in certain spots. ⁓ I just say they establish themselves in certain spots and then yeah, if they move on to the whatever the population explodes, they just go in the next hilary, but they still have those spots right there too. Like Lorenzo, I want to hear your thoughts on this because you've been a Nevada guy forever. And remember us running trail cameras, I don't know what it was, 10, 12 years ago, the amount of horses we got on cameras then. And now obviously this last year when you and I had, you know, our Nevada tags, the struggles of Jenny Lesieutre: So there's another difference, people eventually what's what'd you say, Brady? Brady Miller: running trail cameras and the amount of horses we ran into, wrecking the hunt, just destroying all the water sources. Like has has it been a drastic change for you being Nevada resident from then growing up until now? Lorenzo: I mean it was n yeah, it was noticeable back then, but now it's to the point where it's not even worth putting up cameras in certain areas 'cause it's just I mean, you're gonna get nothing but horses and they're gonna kick everything else out of the area. Jenny Lesieutre: Well, and put up those trail cameras. G give me. I've got, you know, I use it in presentations on a very simple place in on the Virginia Range. Show me what it was in two thousand and sixteen and seventeen and eighteen. If you've got five years or a couple of years of trail cameras, you're gonna see a difference in that water source where you're putting it, 'cause that's where a lot of those trail cameras go to. ⁓ people I know. you know, show me. Those are perfect examples to give to people in DC. Those are the things that I'm able to use. Lorenzo: Yeah. It sounds just like it sounds just like what you were saying where you live. I mean, honestly, back ten years ago when we started Go Hunt, Brady, and we were hanging trail cameras all over, you would see horses. It was noticeable, but you would still have deer on your trail cameras. Now you just have horses. There's no deer on the trail cameras anymore. Brady Miller: Yeah. I have endless photos from last year of just horse, horse, horse, horse, horse. And it's just like and then the numbers of horses too on the on a water source. And then you go to one that's like, like I said, half mile away, you'll have the same number on the same night. So it's not like they're horses are moving from water source to water source. They're two different groups on each every water source displacing all those mule deer. And like you see a mule deer come in for a little bit and all of a sudden, like literally five minutes later, the horses come in and that mule deer is gone. Yeah. Lorenzo: He's kicked off and a bunch of horses show up. Yeah. Brady Miller: So those mule deer don't even get a chance to go to the water source and and drink during the most critical time of the year and they're constantly displaced off that. Like imagine the mule dare they have to go find another water source somewhere else. They're wasting precious calories moving around and all those fawns are doing the same thing. Jenny Lesieutre: Well break. And that's exactly where you're at. Brady, I don't know if you remember in that presentation at the sheep show, the endow gentleman put up, I think it was five or five to ten slides, of a trail camera that literally had elk or I'm sorry, ⁓ deer at the water source, and the trail camera picture showed horses coming down, chasing off the deer, and then running off. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: So literally had that whole perspective if they don't share the water, they'll stand in the water and keep. It's kind of like me watching the hummingbirds in the morning and them going after the feeder. You know, they're not sharing that feeder. They're die by domining the other guy to get off and they're gonna come down. And that's just the same species. You got a horse coming after a deer, that deer's gonna go. I've seen them chase an antelope out on Dolly Barden. That area used to be lush wheat, you know, and now it's moonscaped. And those water sources are disgusting. They're they smell like a sewer, you go past them. Brady Miller: Yeah, I think that was some of the presentation too. There were some photos from back in the day and it was like a kind of like a time series. You could just see the destruction and the level of like the water source just isn't there anymore. And the whole landscape used to be lush and green and now it's just there's nothing there. It's sad. Jenny Lesieutre: Yeah. Well, and I know we're gonna have to get off here shortly. Let's talk about that economic impact when it comes to let's just I mean, this is go hunt. When you're talking about the economic impact in hunting tags that have decreased this year, the number of animals that are managed through those tags, you're not over hunting at all. What's happening is those economic effects are going down to every small town in our state. So we're getting less money being brought in because MDAO is ran by the majority of those hunting tags right there. That's the majority of their budget every year. So as that goes down with dollars. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: What happens to those scientists that are supposed to be watching those resources and watching those numbers? You don't have the money to be able to do that, so it continues to go down, you continue to lose those dollars. What's gonna happen? This isn't, you know, this isn't a lie, this isn't anything. This is simple, basic business. Brady Miller: Uh-huh. Jenny Lesieutre: And why cattle ranchers and everything else have allotments and use is determined. They may have an allotment for 10,000 AUMs, but they can't use it because the horses have already used it and that's double height's not there. Fires, you don't know when a fire's gonna happen. Fire happens. Somebody that's got an allotment, they still get to pay their allotment fee, but they can't graze for five years, especially if it's being rehabbed. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: So let's talk about those economic effects. It has an effect to a point where everything is gonna die, and the last two things surviving are gonna be horses and cockroaches. And I might sound like a horse hater. Call me it. I don't care. I want to be able to see what I saw in 2011 when I came back to Nevada and bought my home here. Trail K: Ha ha ha. Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: I wanna see the wildlife. Yeah, I also wanna see the horses that I'd see maybe once a week in a very small normal band, not the 150 bands, you know, that are out there nowadays. 50 to 100, 100 to 150. That's not a band of horses. That's not reality, and that's not an animal husbandry. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Yeah. Yeah, we've got you for maybe like five or six more minutes. ⁓ I wanted to ask you just to tail end of it because you know, when I when I think about this topic, and I think anybody that takes time to listen to the episode, I think they're gonna understand that like there is a problem. ⁓ you know, and it's it's directly impacting them and their ability to, you know, both see wildlife, even if you're just a wildlife lover and watcher, or you're a hunter. And most people that listen to our podcast are hunters, they want to draw a tag. I myself in Nevada, I mean, I'm a non resident. I apply there every year. I don't know how many points I'm sitting on, but there's a high likelihood that I'll never draw an elk tag, right? But I would like to I would like to increase my opportunity to hunt elk in Nevada. So I would like there to be more elk on the landscape, more deer, more antelope. What can ⁓ you know, so like so somebody that's listening, like what can we actually do to just keep keep it moving? Keep keep the ⁓ you know, keep the fire going, keep the the topic at hand. I mean, should we You know, reach out to the BLM. Should we reach out to state legislators and lawmakers or governors? ⁓ like what what's a practical take home message that that somebody that listens to this that they can do just to raise awareness? Jenny Lesieutre: And I'm I'm this is a congressional issue. And when I say a congressional issue, that's your senators, that's your congressmen at the federal level. It's also your state senators and and assembly women and men, and it's agencies like the counties. The counties, there's seven counties in Nevada that declared an ecological Trail K: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Disaster based on the overpopulation of horses in May 2025. So the counties are very interested in this. So if you're local, out in the middle of nowhere, talk to your county people, encourage them to talk to their state legislators, and then the congressional. BLM is is directed, Forest Service is directed to do their job based on the appropriations. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Money ain't gonna get us out of this. This isn't about money. You can give us a billion dollars, and that's what this guy in DC was saying. And I made it clear to him, you want a program this size to eventually cost a billion dollars to manage? That's well, he didn't realize what the cost really was because it didn't go that deep. He was looking at an old study that we already proved didn't work. Trail K: Was he being serious? Sure. Yeah. Jenny Lesieutre: ⁓ but that's what the freeze summit from five years back was stating because they were trying to be friends with the activists and and the give and take. BLM has always started at the one-yard line, and with folks like us to talk to congressional members to be in in give input put into public comments when you're able to. It's not that hard. ⁓ do those things because at the end of the day, this is all about Congress, it's about writers, it's about them floating on new laws, everything else. We just want the act to be followed as written. That it's that simple. To all your viewers out there, have that conversation, follow the act as written, you know, and then work. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Let the agencies work out how they get to that point. I made a very simple suggestion. We don't have to euthanize a single horse if all those activists took every horse over the age of 10. So that's what they want. They don't want to kill horses or them to go to commercial processing. So then step up. Be a part of the solution. Trail K: Yeah. It I mean that's yeah. I mean there that is a solution. The the the reality of that actually happening is slim to none, right? That they'll they'll actually step up and take And may maybe. I I would assume. Jenny Lesieutre: So maybe it's time people heard that. Trail K: Sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm at a point. I I mean, I I'm I'll not mix words. Like I'm I'm at a point where I'm just ready to to euthanize a bunch of them. Like let's get us back to management levels, like the appropriate levels. Let's like pull off the band-aid. Let's quit screwing around. And if it if it requires guys like me to go out and you know, shoot a few, I'm I'm game. And I and and I hate I mean it's it sounds harsh, but but reality is it just is what it is. Jenny Lesieutre: I am a course person. Look, and and I'm a horse person. I've had to put down horses several in my lifetime. There's two buried in my backyard. ⁓ but Trail K: Mm. Jenny Lesieutre: When we've got horses sitting in pastures that are 32 years old, have no teeth, and people are afraid to put them down. They're literally taking a year to starve to death because they can't chew their food, everything else. Think about an act of mercy. I mean, you guys are hunters. You're not sitting there blowing a animal apart with 50 rounds to shoot it. You know, like these people are falsely saying. You're trying to preserve that and utilize it because you've got respect for that animal. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: Right? Am I am I wrong on that? You you want to utilize that animal that's that's God's given gift to us. And in the respect that I've seen over and over by hunters. I'm not a hunter. I used to hunt when I was young, but I haven't in 40 years. But I enjoy going out there, I enjoy seeing it, I enjoy spotting it, and I enjoy when I see time after time you. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: you guys doing conservation work out there and then utilizing that animal. It's to me that's that's God's given choice. So I call me a horse hater. I don't care. But at this point, as an act of mercy to all those animals out there, every single one of them. I don't care if it's a mouse or if it's an elk or a horse. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Jenny Lesieutre: all those animals out there just show a little act of mercy and let's start managing this one animal like we do everything else so that it does live a healthy life and a good life. Trail K: Mm-hmm. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Trail K: Yeah. Yeah. Well well well said. Probably a a good spot to leave it. Unless Brady or Lorenzo, do you guys have anything that was kind of lingering that you wanted to dive into or ask Jenny? We we really appreciate you coming on. ⁓ like I said, I wanted to catch up and kind of get an update on, you know, what you've been doing and where where things are at. And ⁓ you know, like I said at the beginning, I think my expectation is is I want things to happen fast, but I know that that's not the case. And I think part of the the strategy is just keeping Keeping your foot slowly accelerating on it and keeping it in front of people, keep people talking about it. And, you know, hopefully if somebody listens to it and they care, you know, they will take the time to reach out to a county commissioner or a governor or a state legislator and just say, hey, you know, in the nicest way possible, this is a this is an issue. It's not that I'm a horse hater. I don't hate wildlife. I don't hate horses. You know, I d I love I love animals and but I just want to see what's best for the landscape and all animals. You know, and and not just and not just management for one single domesticated feral yeah, misman mismanagement of an animal. So Jenny Lesieutre: Or mismanagement. No, it is. And and we see it over and over on social media. You're not making grounds just getting on and venting on social media. Please vent. We need that. We need to be able to talk to each other. But if you're gonna take that time to do that, you absolutely have time to reach out to your legislators. So take that time and do it because your venting isn't doing anything. Brady Miller: Yeah. Trail K: Mm-hmm. True. Brady Miller: Mm-hmm. Yep. Jenny Lesieutre: You gotta act. We need boots on the ground, butts in the seats, and people talking logically. Brady Miller: Yep. And I just wanna jump on and say thank you, Jenny, for all your hard work on this. So it's greatly appreciated. Always enjoy these conversations and we gotta just keep doing it more with you because it's always enlightening to hear what's going on and just raise awareness to this. So whenever something big happens again, you should jump on. Jenny Lesieutre: Well we'll Yeah. Thank you. And Lorenzo, you guys, I'll be back down there in December, but I'll be talking to you guys because actually I would love to organize something where you guys actually see a gather. There's a gather on the schedule this year, ⁓ later in the summer. that's closer to you guys, ⁓ they're talking about gathering probably about twenty five hundred, three thousand animals because that herd management area, which has used to be good hunting, has not been gathered since twenty twelve. It's a thousand times over. It's in Lander County. Trail K: Wow. Maybe ⁓ maybe we'll stay in touch and maybe we could nip out and do some sort of content, some film, maybe some sort of documentary on it. 'Cause I know that ⁓ there's there's plenty of, you know, film and documentaries and people from the other side, you know, protesting it and how inhumane it is to gather horses and, you know, they highlight all the reasons why we should just let ⁓ be on the landscape and, you know, let ⁓ exist in Disneyland. But Brady Miller: ⁓ wow. Trail K: You know, it w it would be it would be good. It'd be a good video piece. Maybe we can do that. We'll talk internally and see if we could make that happen because I think it would be it'd be a good a good piece. Jenny Lesieutre: That sounds great. And call me whenever you're up north. Trail K: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Jenny. We appreciate your time. Brady Miller: Well they're. Lorenzo: Yeah, thank you. Jenny Lesieutre: Thank you. Trail K: Yep.