Wild horses on the Salt Wells Creek Herd Area. In 2023, the Bureau of Land Management made management plan changes that included downgrading Salt Wells from a 1.2 million acre (724,000 acres of that public land) Herd Management Area to a Herd Area. Photo by Meg Frederick.

In a stunning win for Wyoming’s thousands of Checkerboard wild horses, on Tuesday, July 15, Return to Freedom and Front Range Equine Rescue, along with wild horse advocates and photographers Angelique Rea and Meg Frederick, successfully defeated the Bureau of Land Management’s decision that would have permanently wiped out the Salt Wells Creek and Great Divide Basin wild horse herds and taken away over 2 million acres of habitat from the herds.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act by failing to consider whether the agency’s management decision complied with the mandatory statutory goal of the Wild Horse Act to achieve and maintain a “thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands.”

“We have been fighting for southwest Wyoming’s wild horses for more than a decade now,” said Neda DeMayo, president of Return to Freedom. “Wild horses and the people who care about them deserve this win.

“Monopolies of the use of public lands need to stop. The horses deserve the fair use of the areas designated them under the 1971 Wild and Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act without threat. These herds continue to be on the front line in the battle over our natural resources on our public lands. Solutions exist to manage to more humanely and sustainably manage America’s wild horses in ways that will benefit wild herds, other wildlife and the range itself.”

This decision comes as the latest culmination in a multi-year legal battle to protect and save these wild horses and to see them continue to thrive on the public lands as the Wild Horse Act intended.

The 10th Circuit entered its crucial judgment, reversing the District Court of Wyoming’s decision that had affirmed BLM’s actions, before BLM’s anticipated start of mass helicopter roundups.  The Bureau’s plans to start gathering and removing Salt Wells wild horses in August cannot go ahead until the lower court decides what the agency now needs to do to correct its management plan to comply with the Wild Horse Act.

The battle continues as RTF and Front Range prepare to face off with BLM over the appropriate remedy for the agency’s violation of law.  Your continued support is critical to preserving this victory and ensuring future protections for America’s wild horses.

We urgently need your help!

Taking on a government agency is a costly, difficult and time-consuming effort. Please donate to our Wild Horse Defense Fund to keep the fight for the future of Wyoming’s wild horses alive and support RTF’s pioneering efforts to improve the oversight of wild horses, burros and other wildlife.