Photo taken on the Salt Wells Herd Management Area by Meg Frederick.
On Tuesday, July 16, we’re headed to federal court to stop illegal roundups and the stripping of 2 million acres of public land from wild horse use for the benefit of private ranchers.
For more than a decade, Return to Freedom has been involved with advocacy and litigation in the Checkerboard region of southwest Wyoming: an unfenced area of alternating, one-mile-square blocks of public and private land set up in the 1860s.
In May 2023, the federal Bureau of Land Management amended its Resource Management Plan for the region based on an agreement with a local ranching group, the Rock Springs Grazing Association.
The BLM’s sole reason for removing land from the use of federally protected wild horses: It’s too difficult to create a barrier between public and private lands.
The changes made to the management plan demonstrate explicit bias and violate federal law.
We are joined in our lawsuit by Front Range Equine Rescue and wild horse photographers and advocates Meg Frederick and Angelique Rea.
The grazing association has sued the BLM, too. The ranchers are trying to convince the court to force the BLM to empty the Checkerboard of wild horses.
RTF and Front Range have also entered that lawsuit, so that we have a seat in the courtroom in order to prevent the ranchers from getting what they want.
Please consider making a donation to help us cover the cost of this important litigation.