A showdown in the high desert over the presence of more than 3,000 free-roaming horses on 2.1 million acres of southwest Wyoming’s checkerboard region won’t happen for at least six more months, federal attorneys say.
Hundreds of miles away from desert in Denver and Cheyenne courts, there was much uncertainty in late 2025 about what would become of the Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and a portion of the Adobe Town herds. Because they dwell in the “checkerboarded” strip of the state where private and public land interchanges, those herds have been the source of a historic dispute.
Last year, Bureau of Land Management plans to eliminate the herds were OK’d administratively, but then appealed, delayed and declared illegal by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. The federal agency signaled it would remove the herds anyway, however, triggering more litigation that compelled BLM to hit the brakes.
Now, BLM officials “do not anticipate” they will attempt the free-roaming horse purge until at least the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. Federal attorneys stated as much in a joint motion filed last week requesting the U.S. District Court for Wyoming — which is overseeing the case again — pause the legal proceedings until at least May 10. The next day, U.S. District Judge Kelly Rankin granted the request.
There are several reasons why BLM is not attempting to execute the whole-herd removal plans before October, BLM-Wyoming spokesman Micky Fisher said.
“We generally want to make sure the funding is in line in order to move forward,” Fisher said Thursday. “That’s really the bottom line.”
Staffing is also a concern, Fisher said. Additionally, he said, BLM also needs to make sure it’s on sound legal footing before proceeding.
When the 10th Circuit concluded the plans were illegal, it faulted BLM for not explaining how removing all horses from public sections of the checkerboard would maintain a “thriving natural ecological balance” — a requirement of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
Fisher could not comment on the remedy because it’s considered active litigation.
Meantime, wild horse advocates who have pressed to keep the free-roaming equines on the landscape say they’re grateful for the reprieve.
“We’re certainly glad that the horses aren’t in immediate danger of being rounded up and removed,” said Jennifer Best, wildlife law program director for Friends of Animals, which is a plaintiff. “We’re kind of in a waiting pattern with BLM right now to see what they will do.”
If BLM’s adjusted plans have the same end goal, Friends of Animals will sue again, she said.
“We believe that wiping them out from all the public lands is illegal,” Best said. “We remain committed to challenging any decision, short of allowing these wild horses to stay on public lands.”
It’s unlikely BLM back offs its long-held plans to eliminate the checkerboard herds, said attorney Bill Eubanks, who represents horse advocacy groups.
“I guess anything is possible. I don’t see it,” said Eubanks, who’s been involved in the litigation for 15 years. “BLM has never once proposed a situation that would keep horses out there. They have done everything in their power to try to get horses gone, gone, gone. It would take a big change of heart.”
The Bureau of Land Management has relatively little free-roaming horse management planned in Wyoming during 2026. Tentative plans include administering fertility control on 95 horses in the Stewart Creek and McCullough Peaks herds, according to the agency’s schedule. A “drive trap” gather targeting removal of 286 animals from the Bighorn Basin’s Fifteenmile Herd is slated to begin Sept. 15.
According to the BLM, as of March 1 there were more than 85,000 wild horses and burros on public lands across the West. That’s more than three times the “appropriate management level” set by the agency, which is intended to keep the landscape and herds healthy and sustainable.
Good thing it was stopped as this weather situation is going ro devastated herd, flocks and fish of our wildlife across the west central USA unless the weather patterns change. It was so dry in SW Wyo the grass that is usually edible to animals is dry and dead with no sustainability as food.
And let’s stick to calling them what they really are. Ferrel horses, not “wild horses”.
BLM is all about removing our wild horses and burros when they are paid to protect them. If they are looking at degradation of our public lands, they should look at removing cattle. How many cattle have they removed. Recently BLM rounded up young horses and they ended up at an auction in Oklahoma within 3 hours of being rounded up. BLM knew they were sold to kill buyers who were taking them across the border for slaughter. They had the power to step in and prosecute the kill buyers, but they just don’t care about our wild horses. These young horses were all less than 2 years old! This is NOT protecting our wild horses!
Sounds like quite the delay for those wild horses. What kind of legal issues are they facing?
Simple: Issue tags to conservationist hunters who have valid hunting licenses to bag a horse for personal consumption.
They’ll supplement feed the elk but want to round up and put in holding pens the wild horses which the taxpayer then has to pay to keep there. Doesn’t make sense to me.
There are 1.2 MILLION acres and 3000 horses roaming so that’s 1 horse every 700 acres and yet the BLM is telling us they have to slaughter them ALL. There is no justification for doing this. PZP, a horse birth control used for many years in other wild horse management programs and can be administered every other year to the mares so the population will not increase. It is cheap and would cause the population to slowly go down. I will go now to the site – Friends of Animals and make a big donation because they have been effective in stopping BLM ridiculous plan.
BLMs population estimates are laughable. In 2021, the estimate for wild horses was 71735 and burros 14454. In 2025, it was 53797 horses and 19333 burros. Now they claim 61523 horses and 24933 burros!
Between 2021 and 2025, BLM removed 52502 wild horses and 10685 burros. In 2021 they claim 52,000 horses and burro in holding and in 2025 they claim 64205 to 68000. Looking at those figures, thousands are just disappearing!
With BLMs logic, the removals don’t change a thing. The population just continues to increase and wild horses and burros breed like rabbits. I call BS, and the agency is feeding the public lies hoping we just won’t do the math so their dream of complete annihilation of our wild horse and burro populations will die out before we notice.
The population estimates are made up fantasies coming from the livestock-friendly agency tasked to protect these herds. This is a slap in the public’s face and it’s time to call them out on their BS and inability to do math!
Let’s see. Recently posted that the BLM is removing Russian Olive trees because they are an “invasive species”, but have been here as long as many “Americans”. Now they are not ready to remove wild horses, an “invasive species” because of several reasons, one being they did not include a “natural ecological balance” to the courts. Yes, that is who is operating the millions of acres of land. A government that did not think to include that into a report. Perhaps they should read up on the author and father of conservation Aldo Leopold, just as a starting point.