Mare watching as her foal gets the “zoomies” in the upcoming target area at Triple B

It has been a really busy summer during a really busy year.

Labor Day is celebrated all over the world. Many countries celebrate the day in the spring. In the U.S., the day is celebrated in the fall. Essentially this is a day to honor those who fought for the rights of working people and appreciate the hard work of people in different jobs. It is not only a day to celebrate those who fought to get an 8-hour workday (instead of the sweatshop like conditions that came before the Labor Movement) but it is also about treating everyone fairly, no matter their background or job.

Labor Day weekend seems like an appropriate time to catch up with all of you on what WHE has been doing this summer.

Capture during heat event and dangerous air quality from wildfire smoke, Blue Wing, 2024.

Of course, WHE has been your source for up-to-date roundup reporting. We publish as things happen. Our team works really hard to report to you within 24 hours of an event, not days, weeks or months later. (Update on the fiscal year 2024 roundup schedule HERE)

You can help in the fight against abuse. We include WHEs extensive report on Blue Wing where we found 18 violations (even with limited access) and BLM gave themselves an “excellent” rating. Our reporting points to the need for outside oversight because BLM is not providing oversight and instead providing “a support system.” Learn more HERE. 

While our team was running the most intensive capture summer in history (in July alone more wild horses and burros were captured than in the entire year of 2013, 2014, 2015…) we were very busy on Appeals and in Federal Court. 

Triple B

Back in June we notified you of the last round of comments due for a large mine expansion that will impact more than a third of the Triple B HMA, the Bald Mountain Expansion “Juniper Project.” This mine is not the only project that cuts off critical habitat needed for the survival of this herd. There are other mines, existing fencing, new fencing for livestock, new mines in the works (one in comment behind Cherry Creek). One of our last large herds in the U.S. is getting squeezed out of their legal territory. If they move off their territory to find food and water (after it is taken by other interests), they are considered in “trespass” and subject to immediate removal.

We filed in the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) against this expansion. This expanding mine will kill Golden Eagles, encroach on sage grouse habitat and eat up precious resources for wild horses. BLM did some “mitigation of damages” for deer and livestock. For wild horses BLM provided absolutely nothing… not even a recognition of the loss of the best grazing available to wild horses in the entire HMA. (You can learn more about what this one HMA in the Antelope/Triple B Complex faces today.)

Under the Antelope/Triple B gather-EA of 2017 BLM has already removed nearly 12,000 horses. Yes, you read that right. One of the last strongholds in the heart of “wild horse country” is being destroyed. The wild horses in the area of the mine expansion are among those BLM originally targeted for capture this September, but removed off the schedule. We know they are trying to get this back on the removal schedule as fast as they can.

Not only is BLM trying to approve this mine without crafting any Herds Management Area Plan (HMAP) that would open the door to appropriate mitigation, they are trying to get this area hit again on the roundup schedule forcing us to fight on two fronts at once to protect this herd.

It seems a bit crazy and really disrespectful to the courts, but while we are arguing in court now that BLM keeps hitting the HMAs under this “Gather-EA” that they never do any real Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA), they are trying to put a different HMA on the removal schedule perhaps thinking the court won’t recognize the name or simply trying to force us to spend more funding to craft additional court filings? Over the summer we filed briefs on this case with additional briefing due September 16.

What is happening now at Triple B is a site-specific battle in the land use process. It is also indicative of how BLM shortchanges wild horses and burros at every turn. When advocates say “BLM does not manage wild horses they just remove them to suit private profit,” that is not a rhetorical statement. The paperwork (or lack of paperwork) bears this out time and again. 

Stone Cabin

Right now, WHE is in federal court to protect Stone Cabin/Saulsbury from literally being “run off” to suit profiteers. In 2023, a livestock permittee filed a lawsuit to try to force BLM to remove wild horses from these HMAs. Instead of simply filing for intervention to stop BLM from caving to pressure and simply allowing them to do a “scheduled” removal, WHE filed our own lawsuit and asked the courts to stand our case as an equal claim. Stone Cabin/Saulsbury is one of the most historic herds to the history of advocacy itself.

The importance to early advocates in the movement saw this area gain one of the few actual Herd Management Area Plans (HMAP) in the nation back in 1983. BLM never did anything outlined in the HMAP (monitoring in conjunction with Forest Service, water improvements, identifying which herds were BLM and which were Forest Service and how the space between was a critical seasonal migratory route). BLM also never updated the HMAP in spite of numerous promises to do so and a draft HMAP scoping package that was being drafted in 2016 that BLM never completed.

At the same time as the permittee is trying to force removal of wild horses on the BLM side, the Forest Service is in the process of granting the permittee the ability to graze and fence an area directly in the critical migratory path that is subject of the federal litigation WHE has with BLM.

WHE filed a legal Objection (the word Forest Service uses instead of Appeal) on the Monitor-Toquima Vacant Allotment plan earlier this year. In fact, while driving from the North Lander roundup in Wyoming and filing reports for the public (and editing the video from observers at other operations) our team lead, Laura Leigh, pulled over on the highway to virtually attend a hearing while on her way to the Swasey roundup in Utah starting the next day (the reality of a working advocate).

Leigh was extremely restricted by Forest Service from speaking and simply reiterated that no fencing or approval for grazing should be permitted until the scope of adjudication of the HMAP case was made by the judge in federal court. The “gift” to a disgruntled permittee needed to be put on hold.

We will update as we have more information.

For the Three Rivers Complex (Big Sandy, Alamo, and Lake Havasu Herd Management Areas) BLM released an inadequate “gather and population control” assessment that WHE filed extensive comments on. This burro complex spans nearly 1 million acres and includes BLM, USFS and Bureau of Reclamation. BLM says the population of burros is over 2,000. Management in this stronghold of burros in Arizona should not be as simple as “remove to genetic bankruptcy” and throw fertility control on top (as BLM is doing everywhere under the politics of big corporate and “Path Forward”). WHE has been doing monitoring and research to make a stand in the courts if BLM does not take our comments into consideration in the final plan.

Scar, North Lander by Jim Brown

As the North Lander roundup in Wyoming began to wind down, WHE began pressuring BLM to release census data to demonstrate the accuracy of their “population estimates” that they were leaving on the range. The operation ended early because, in fact, populations were being driven below the low number legally set for the range.

Many of you signed our petition to ask BLM to release actual census data and work with advocates to get specific wild horses they know and love released. If you have not signed the petition there is still time to learn why we are asking and ti sign on HERE.

Removals are hard. When wild ones you have known a long time are removed forever your enjoyment of public lands really is diminished. BLM should be taking that “legal fact” into consideration.

In blistering heat foals cluster by a wire fence seeking the shreds of shade provided (Palomino Valley Center, open to the public)

The updates above show the tip of the iceberg of everything WHE has been working on this summer as our team continues our labor of love… the fight to protect and preserve our precious wild ones. 

Take a moment to reflect on how the labor movement made desperately needed changes in our daily lives. Progress is possible, but it takes hard work and sometimes moves one step at a time to reach a smaller specific goal that all adds up to broad scale and lasting change. 

Stay safe this labor day weekend.

Thank you for keeping us running for the wild. Together we can move forward to create long overdue and desperately needed change.