FoA files lawsuit against BLM for moving forward with loco wild horse scheme in Wyoming
Priscilla Feral
https://friendsofanimals.org/foa-files-lawsuit-against-blm-for-moving-forward-with-loco-wild-horse-scheme-in-wyoming/
For Immediate Release
Sept. 3, 2025
Jennifer Best, director, FoA’s Wildlife Law Program 720.949.7791; jenn...@friendsofanimals.org
FoA files lawsuit against BLM for moving forward with loco wild horse scheme in Wyoming
Friends of Animals has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Wyoming against the Bureau of Land Management because it is moving forward with its plan to eliminate wild horses from more than one million acres of federal public lands known as the Checkerboard despite the Tenth Circuit’s July 15 ruling that the agency’s wild horse Resource Management Plan Amendment is illegal.
In the Checkerboard, public lands are interspersed with private parcels like those owned by the Rock Springs Grazing Association.
“While the BLM may wish to appease a private ranching association by removing all the wild horses in and around the Checkerboard, the agency is not above the law. It’s unfathomable, not to mention unlawful, that to date the BLM has refused to withdraw its decision to remove up to 5,000 federally protected wild horses from the Salt Wells Creek, Great Divide Basin and Adobe Town Herd Management Areas,” said Jennifer Best, director of FoA’s Wildlife Law Program.
In 2023, BLM issued a Resource Management Plan to eliminate wild horses from more than a million acres of public lands and set the ‘appropriate management level’ to zero. In Friends of Animals’ original legal challenge, the Tenth Circuit found that BLM acted arbitrarily in issuing a RMP without considering the requirements of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, including the necessity to manage wild horses in a manner designed to maintain a thriving, natural ecological balance.
BLM claims there are an estimated 1,003 horses in Salt Wells Creek, 875 in Great Divide Basin and 1,693 in Adobe Town. A monstrous 14,448 cattle and 40,231 sheep are allowed to graze where the BLM wants to wipe out wild horses.
The numbers, which the BLM doesn’t even try to hide, don’t lie. They hardly represent the “balance” that the Wild Horse and Burro Act of 1971 demands.
“Not only could this extreme, reckless decision be devastating to thousands of wild horses across southwest Wyoming, it could also set a dangerous precedent that allows BLM to ignore the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act, which was intended to protect wild horses on federal public lands,” added Best.
“The tragedy of wild horse roundups exists because the BLM is devoted to turning public lands into feedlots for cows and sheep to appease the meat industry,” said Priscilla Feral president of Friends of Animals. “Friends of Animals finds this morally and ecologically reprehensible, as wild horses are driven off lands to leave the bulk of water, forage and space for doomed domestic animals.”
It is a national disgrace that there are now more wild horses in captivity—59,622—than roaming free. There are only 53,797 wild horses left on federal public lands.
“You can’t have a government agency working for the meat industry. What the BLM and ranchers are doing to wild horses is criminal,” Feral said.
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Darien, Conn.-based Friends of Animals, an international animal protection organization founded in 1957, advocates for the rights of animals, free-living and domestic around the world. www.friendsofanimals.org
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