Cool Nature Photos

[deserteagle71]

Open Range. If you don't want livestock on your property, put a fence around it.

????

"Open Range" is just that. Open (no fences), and rangeland. So if you own property around land that is designated and marked as Open Range then yes, if you want to keep out livestock and wildlife, it is up to you to fence them out. It DOES NOT apply to people living in towns or cities. I know of no towns or cities in Nevada that are designated Open Range.

When I moved to my current semi-rural location 30 years ago this was designated as Open Range. About 10 years later, after more people moved to the area, the county removed the Open Range designation. Of course, livestock (and as far as I'm concerned, that includes mustangs) doesn't care about legal designations. They will go where the food and water is.

 

[Runner]

It is absolutely true. For most intents and purposes the mustangs have no natural predators to keep down their numbers so their population increases rapidly. But this is Nevada - the driest state in the nation. These horses are not grazing grassy fields. Look at the photo I posted. It is mostly brush. Waterholes/springs are few and far between and when a big band of mustangs comes to the spring they leave nothing but a muddy mess. In summer many of those springs dry up and many of those mustangs are found dead around dried up springs. So all the devastated brush (which deer and other wildlife browse) and destroyed springs have a big effect on our wildlife. Around cities and towns the mustangs have adapted - they are protected by law and find grazing people's lawns and gardens and stripping their fruit trees good fodder. How'd you like to see this on your front lawn...and you can't do a thing about it?

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Several people are killed every year in Nevada when they hit a mustang while driving at night. Its not like hitting a cow - the horse is so tall that when the car hits it in the legs the body of the horse hits the windshield. By law the Government is supposed to keep the mustang numbers in check - range management experts set allowable numbers that the land can support. And they try. Right now Nevada has an estimated 70,000 mustangs roaming free - way over what the desert land can support. But every time they try to gather some of them up any number of "wild horse protective" organizations (mostly made up of older women, by the way) file a lawsuit and the gather is delayed.

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The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) has around 65,000 wild horses in various holding facilities around the country where they live out their lives as per the last paragraph of the above article. You and I, the taxpayer, pay for the upkeep...to the tune of $100,000,000+ per year.

I consider that another example of government waste.



cannot be

How do they interact with humans? For instance, if you drove into that driveway and got out of the car, would they run off or just stand there? Is it illegal to just "shoo" them out of the yard?

 

[kenmbz]

In my backyard looking over my neighbors fields. This was going to be a house right up in front until my neighbor decided to buy the property so he wouldn't have to see it. His house is bottom center.
We wanted to buy the land, but could not afford it at the time.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

My wife hates this one.

Saw this snake trapped in the pool, so I fished him out. He was so exhausted, he just lay there.

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

I discovered that if you go small, you have a lot more opportunities to take nature photos. This blossom was probably 3/8" across, and it's on a common weed.

I took it with a Canon 350D I bought back in something like 2005. I think my cell phone has 6 times the pixel count.

 

[snymat68]

I discovered that if you go small, you have a lot more opportunities to take nature photos. This blossom was probably 3/8" across, and it's on a common weed.

I took it with a Canon 350D I bought back in something like 2005. I think my cell phone has 6 times the pixel count.

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Macro can be a lot of fun! Especially if you introduce flash and learn to balance the ratio of ambient to artificial light on the subject. Here's a couple of many I've gotten over the past few years. (Yes that's pollen on the bumble bee.)

 

[Suburban Plowboy]

Those are fantastic. I got set up to do this kind of work, and then the baby came.

 

[deserteagle71]

How do they interact with humans? For instance, if you drove into that driveway and got out of the car, would they run off or just stand there? Is it illegal to just "shoo" them out of the yard?

Depends on the band. The ones in my original post alerted to me even though I was more than a quarter of a mile away shooting with a telephoto lens, and they began moving away. Most will run away - fast. But if they are habituated to people and get most of their forage from people's lawns then getting them to move can be a problem - and they are dangerous. They are still a wild animal - a big wild animal. And each one is different. Some will move away if you get too close. Others will defend their territory and strike out - or trample - anyone who invades their space. The stallions can be very aggressive. Technically it is illegal to disturb them in any way - but I know people chase them out of their yards and I've yet to hear of anyone being arrested for doing so.