Photo taken on the Salt Wells Herd Management Area in the Wyoming Checkerboard by Meg Frederick.

Return to Freedom is awaiting a federal judge’s rulings in two cases crucial to the future of wild horses in southwest Wyoming.

On Tuesday, we took part in a hearing before Judge Kelly Rankin in the United States District Court for the District of Wyoming.

RTF is fighting to stop the Bureau of Land Management from stripping 2 million acres from wild horse use for the benefit of private ranchers in the Checkerboard: an unfenced area of alternating, one-mile-square blocks of public and private land set up in the 1860s.

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We are joined in our lawsuit by Front Range Equine Rescue and wild horse photographers and advocates Meg Frederick and Angelique Rea.

The local ranching group, the Rock Springs Grazing Association, has also sued BLM. It is seeking the complete removal of wild horses from the Checkerboard. RTF and Front Range have also entered that lawsuit, in order to have a seat in the courtroom to prevent the ranchers from getting what they want.

Judge Rankin listened to three hours of arguments. He asked few questions of the attorneys that spoke and gave no indication of which way he was leaning.

Rankin acknowledged the need to make a decision soon because it could affect a planned August helicopter roundup. The BLM intends to remove 586 wild horses from the Checkerboard.

In May 2023, the federal BLM amended its Resource Management Plan for the region based on an agreement with the grazing association. We contend that those changes demonstrated explicit bias and violate federal law.

The agency’s reason for removing the land from wild horse use: It’s too difficult to create a barrier between public and private lands.

Before even finalizing the changes, the BLM removed 3,502 wild horses from the Checkerboard during a $1.1 million, three-month-long roundup from late 2021 to early 2022. Thirty-seven horses were killed.