ADM 624 Week 4 Assignment Case 6.1 Wild Horses

MANAGEMENT OF WILD HORSES IN THE WILDLIFE

Grand Canyon University

Management of wild horses in the wildlife

Introduction

Wildlife is important to the national economy, and proper care needs to be accorded while it ensures natural habitat existence to maintain an ecological balance. Governments protect the natural habitats with enacted law and creation of governing institutions to manage resources allocated. Due to the growing population, it is imperative for wildlife institutions to limit the population to ensure resources are enough for the remaining horses. There must be human ways to be able to eliminate the horses in the habitat. This report provides the type of decision technique that bureau of land management will be expected to undertake to manage resources efficiently while controlling the population of wild horses.

Which decision-making techniques and concepts described in this chapter are most appropriate to the BLM’s situation? Show how you would apply them.

Decisions are needed for a course of actions to be effected in any organization. The best decision is analyzed based on the available case study and appropriate measures implemented. Bureau of Land Management is tasked with the management of wildlife in their habitats to ensure resources are effectively used. Wild horses population has been increasing due to the good weather conditions experienced since their eating habitat is fertile with a variety of greens. It has led to Congress enactment of laws that will be able to limit their increasing populations. There have been many proposed solutions to limit the population with divisions arising over the human killings and birth control. Time is of the essence, and the best decisions need to be taken to ensure that thoughts of each and every voice raised are considered to control the population of the wild horses.

Pro/con technique provides the proposed solutions are weighed based on the advantages and disadvantages with the more advantages over the disadvantages chosen. There are different proposed solutions to be able to limit the population of wild horses in their natural habitat from sterilization to limit birth control to human killing. Limiting birth control is an effective way to control population as the dominant male species will not be able to produce viable semen to procreate.  The process involves the rounding up of the wild horses in the park once identified and marked to avoid repetition which can be injurious to the animals due to an overdose. The challenge that exists is in locating the habitat as the park is huge to be able to determine the whole population.   The killing of the wild horses is easier as it will reduce the population in an instant. Killing is done through slaughterhouses and selling the meat to the consumers since horse meat is legally consumed in the United State of America. Killing is the best decisions that need to be taken to ensure that the population is effectively controlled since its pros outweigh the cons (Mardani,   Jusoh  & Zavadskas,  2015).

Cost/ benefit analysis provides that decisions be made on the measure of weighing out the costs and benefits.  When considered on costs and benefit slaughtering the wild horse and making the male species impotent through artificial means which would be the affordable costs with a variety of benefits, it would be appropriate to use the correct cost analysis technique. Due to the costs of locating the wild horses in the park, it becomes expensive to acquire the resources available to handle the process on an annual basis.  The affordable procedure will be to consume wild horse meat slaughtered under the strict supervision of the public health professionals to ensure safer consumption to the public (Kahraman  & Yanık 2016).

What suggestions would you make to help the Bureau improve its handling of the wild horse problem?

    To be able to ensure safer habitat it is important for the wild horses to be taken care with approaches geared towards their safety. A safer habitat provides a lifetime existence to the wild horses to be able to live freely from poaching and other wildlife invasions. Resources are supposed to be acquired to ensure the process of handling the wild horses is effective and timely in the long run.

    There are times when weather conditions are severe with the drought that ravages pastures such that wild horses are left with no eating habitat.  Bureau of land management needs to have pastured ready for such an event. The process of acquiring food content for the wild horses is supposed to be outsourced for an effective management so that reliability is assured in supply. Wild horses pasture includes hay and constant supply of water in the park (McCann, 2015).

    Treatment needs to be secured with the assistance of qualified professionals as veterinarians. During their lifetime outbreak of diseases do occur in the ecosystem due to changing weather patterns and interactions with other species which might be extinct the wild horses if thorough care is not guaranteed. Diseases that are preventable yet fatal include foot and mouth hence it is imperative to vaccinate to assure prevention. Veterinarians provide professional advice on how to tackle animal diseases and management, and they should be hired and consulted on an occasional basis (McCann, 2015).

    Animal habitat needs to be protecting from intruders who appear to destroy wild horse’s natural ecosystem by cutting down trees for commercial purposes which serve the food for the wild horses. The bureau of land management should propose harsh measures against park intruders to the Congress to enact laws to protect wild horse’s existence (McCann, 2015). 

How would you model this problem?

Bureau of land management has a role under its mandate to manage the wildlife which includes wild horses. Resources and laws have been allocated and enacted to provide effective management towards achieving the goals but to no avail. Wild horses have been under threat from the laws passed to meager resource allocation to be to ensure their survival. Views have been expressed from horse lobby groups and ecological scientists opposing the views proposing a different perspective. Through management of population in the habitat of the wild horses, Horse lobby has identified commercial interest from the bureau of land management which they oppose vehemently (McGowan  & Possingham, 2016).

 Horse lobby groups have maintained their stands on having a natural habitat controlling their existence through natural selection while the government proposes procedures to control the population of the wild horses for easier management with the available resources. Scientists who also double up to are environmentalist oppose the existence of wild horses as species that destroy habitat to other animal’s existence such as desert turtle by destroying water points and grasses leading to consequences that are grave. To have the animals on a ranch creates more challenges than the solutions it provides while there are sections of the environmentalists propose such a set up which Congress proposes.   There have been different proposed on the existence of wild horses with proposals such as starving them to death and controlling their population. Ecologists and lobby groups differ in opinions by the proposal of setting the horses apart from their natural habitat (Gardner, 2015).

Conclusion

    It is important for the relevant state institution to protect natural habitats of the wildlife to alleviate extinction. Commercial interest needs to be set aside to come up with proposed solutions that are effective and non-biased. The organization tasked with proposed implementation of maintaining wildlife needs to ensure its resources are used effectively in the management of wildlife animals such as the wild horse. 

Reference

Gardner, B. (2015). Reviews and Brief Notices Conservation Biology Wildlife Management and Conservation: Contemporary Principles and Practices. Edited by Paul R. Krausman and James W. Cain III. Published in affiliation with The Wildlife Society by Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (Maryland). $99.50. xiii+ 342 p.; ill.; index. ISBN: 978-1-4214-0986-3 (hc); 978-1-4214-0987-0 (eb). 2013. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 90(1).

Kahraman, C., & Yanık, S. (2016). Intelligent Decision Making Techniques in Quality Management: A Literature Review. In Intelligent Decision Making in Quality Management (pp. 1-22). Springer International Publishing.

Mardani, A., Jusoh, A., & Zavadskas, E. K. (2015). Fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making techniques and applications–Two decades review from 1994 to 2014. Expert Systems with Applications, 42(8), 4126-4148.

McCann, B. (2015). Utility of low-stress livestock handling techniques for management of feral horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Stockmanship Journal, 4(2), 54-62.

 McGowan, J., & Possingham, H. P. (2016). Commentary: linking movement ecology with wildlife management and conservation. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 4, 30.