Apologies for the length of the piece. This is one I simply did not have the time to try to shorten. 

We need your support to keep fighting. We could simply say “We are fighting to keep wild horses free!” and ask for your support. But we want you to understand the fight.

If you agree that things like data, the number BLM allows on range (Appropriate Management Level) and habitat issues are important, this article will weave you through the maze for one of America’s last large herds: the story of two active lawsuits and Triple B.

This article might seem technical for many of you. But again, we do not simply want to say: “We are fighting to save wild horses!” We want to tell you what the fight looks like. The more time you spend working to understand the lingo, the less BLM can hide in it.

Note: We have edited this article a couple of times. It made it a bit longer, but we added things to help clarify.

3 generations. Triple B, 2017. The year the gather plan EA was approved

“This land is your land. This land is my land.” If you are a wild horse and burro advocate, you are left off the invitation list and you are really not welcome at the table of stakeholders. 

In the U.S. wild horses and burros are removed to suit other interests. 

That is not a statement born of rhetoric. The paperwork bears out that statement time and again. This is not a statement of attack, exaggeration or folly. 

Wild horses and burros are not only disregarded as “integral” to the actual landscape, they are omitted entirely as part of the interlocking planning that is supposed to create a baseline of “multiple use” within the “system” of public lands. 

Little Dove born as the 2022 roundup began to wind down

Sidebar for those of you that do not have a lot of time to read but want to help “do something” about roundups, there is one item we may still be able to get into the Appropriations bill with an amendment in this chaotic election year and heavy corporate lobby group pressure with other agendas: the welfare policy (learn more HERE and make a call).

A look at Triple B: roundups, paperwork and lawsuits (a tale of so many wrongs)

It all layers together: Removal plans (that are not management plans) run full steam as permits are approved for private interests that destroy and fragment necessary habitat for herd survival that then drives larger and more aggressive removal plans. That is literally how it all works. 

 Let’s start with an active roundup plan

In 2017, BLM finalized the Antelope and Triple B Gather Plan.

This monstrosity of a removal plan covered acreage larger than the states of Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

The “project area” for this gather plan EA is nearly 4 million acres; by far, this is the most absurdly large and unwieldy Gather-EA in the country.  BLM combined two of the largest complexes in the nation into one “on paper only” complex to shortchange the NEPA process so they only had to do one document and allow public input only once. The area under this single “gather plan” is larger than Rhode Island and Connecticut combined.

In practice, they need to divide up roundups under that gather plan because the area is too large to simply to a “gather” (while they try to act like they did some site-specific management planning when there certainly wasn’t any as this gather plan enters its 8th year).

Continued removals

Every single year since this removal plan was approved there has been a roundup in this area. So far over 12,000 wild horses have been removed under this one massive single document.

If you do the math, about 19% of all wild horses caught since 2017 were caught under this one gather plan. 

Think about it… nearly 1 in 5 of every wild horse captured since 2017 comes from the Antelope and Triple B gather plan. 

The scope and intensity of this operation is off the charts! 

In the 8th year, this year, BLM has another 2,355 wild horses on the 2025 schedule. This is the largest single gather plan in the entire history of the program. Any other project done at this scale over time would have required an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).  An Environmental Assessment is a basic assessment, an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is an actual landscape level hard look. BLM did the least amount of analysis (work) they could get away with. 

As with every single roundup done under this “ten-year gather plan EA,” BLM NV has not released any Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA) or any supplemental analysis… ever. Instead, BLM NV simply types those words using all lower case letters (instead of the official upper case) and then links back to the same document they released in 2017.

A DNA is a document done prior to an action to show existing NEPA is/is not adequate when circumstances change. The massive scope of this gather plan definitely indicates BLM needs to do one now. How many are in each HMA? Which ones did you hit AML? What does the range look like after each removal? Did the hard winters kill off horses and the population lower than BLM computer modeling indicates? You already removed over 12,000… that alone is reason to do a new analysis.

Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA) – A DNA is a determination that an action is adequately analyzed in an existing NEPA document and conforms to the approved land use plan. A DNA is a means by which you use existing NEPA to cover your proposed action without doing any additional NEPA. (NOTE: BLM also uses the term “Decision of NEPA Adequacy.”)

The lack of disclosure (and the public participation that is supposed to happen) is part of our current lawsuit directly addressing this ten-year gather plan. We are doing more work on this case this week. 

We are fighting now in the courts. We do not know how quickly we can get this through the courts. But the case is on file and active. We are working hard. 

Little Dove is now auntie to the growing foals in her family… in the targett zone of the next roundup set to begin in November.

Earlier this year BLM lost part of a lawsuit on “ten-year gather plans.” The judgment clearly states that for BLM to continue to use older NEPA (ten-year gather plans) BLM must release clarifying documentation to show their existing NEPA is adequate.

Since that court ruling, before contemplating another removal under a ten-year plan, BLM is releasing DNAs all over the West in California, Wyoming, Oregon, Utah. etc., everywhere except in NV. 

We are in court on this issue right now in two separate cases; one case directly addressing this very same monster gather plan EA. 

Why does Nevada feel it does not have to comply with a court precedent that clearly impacts the national program when a ten-year gather plan has gone beyond the first roundup? Maybe because they manage more wild horses and burros than all other states combined and simply feel it is too much work to be accountable and would rather waste taxpayer funds paying for Department of Justice lawyers to defend them? What else can you think? It is clear that every other state interprets the ruling as “you need to release a DNA.” Why has NV simply dug in their heels?

Triple B: Only one band remained on the range in this area after the 2022 roundup. They are now in the target zone again.

There is no actual management plan at Triple B

Earlier this year there was a another amazing victory in a federal court ruling. The court recognized that a “gather plan” is not a “management plan.” At Pancake (across a major highway from Triple B) the court remanded the gather plan back to BLM for failures in analysis and gave them one year to craft the illegally-withheld HMAP. Until BLM complies, it cannot do roundups in this area.

Herd Management Area Plans (HMAPs) identify and set objectives for WH&B herds and their habitat. HMAPs are prepared with public involvement through a site-specific environmental analysis and decision process (NEPA) including an open scoping period so issues can be identified before BLM crafts any management alternatives. Alternatives should include things like monitoring objectives, critical habitat, seasonal movement, specific foaling season for the herd and any changes, range improvements, when cows should come off to protect horse or burro habitat and climate change, etc.

BLM has also never done a single Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) for any of the HMAs in the Antelope and Triple B Complex… not one. 

Multiple Use Planning?

An HMAP would provide the only landscape level analysis that would then be used for things like “How do we actually mitigate damages from a mine?” A Land Use Plan (LUP) or Resource Management Plan (RMP) is not a landscape level analysis site-specific management plan. The LUP or RMP is simply an overarching intention that should be “informed” by existing management plans for livestock, mining, wildlife and wild horses and burros. The LUP/RMP game is one BLM uses a lot. The LUP is the place where all the management plans should interlock (like a puzzle). It does not take the place of “issue and site-specific” analysis and planning. (All you land use geeks just went “Of course!”)

So when you see a gather plan you can see in the list BLM provides that it complies with management plans for everything from ATV trails, livestock, hunting to mining. But you never see compliance with any Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) for the herd the gather is being approved for. If you do see an old HMAP from the 1980s or 90s, BLM will act like either the LUP or a previous gather plan negated the HMAP. (The HMAP is the only management document expressly written into regulations and it can’t just be discarded because it’s “too hard and we just want to get rid of the horses and not let anyone from the public have any say.)

But when you see a livestock Allotment Management Plan (AMP) or mining EIS, you never see a “in compliance with” management plans for wild horses or burros. If you even see wild horses noted in a grazing permit or mining EIS, you just see a promise to keep roundups going and horses out of the way.  

The paperwork bears out the statement that wild horses and burros are not managed but simply removed to suit every other interest. 

During the 2022 roundup, BLM public affairs claimed we were not permitted to take pictures of the mining rigs as they were allowed to simply drive through an active helicopter run.

When it comes to mining, BLM takes excluding wild horses to a whole new level. 

Before the EIS for the Juniper Project (Bald Mountain mine expansion) was even drafted, we met with the district manager to ensure appropriate mitigation was being done for the herd. This expansion will cause this mine to take literally 30% of existing prime habitat for wild horses. The mine is not the only impact: BLM approved fences and waters (that get shut off when the cows go to slaughter). Another mine is in the approval process to the east of this one. An energy pipeline is in process of approval in the southern part of this HMA.

When it came time to draft the approval for the mine, the district manager completely disregarded our meeting and any analysis of the herd beyond a couple of lines that just (essentially) promise to keep removing horses that could be a “hazard” for mine traffic. (Learn more HERE)

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Above: Slideshow showing expansion of Bald Mountain Mine (Juniper), the Greenlinks north transmission line and the new mine behind Cherry Creek. Throw in all the grazing fences and you can see absolutely zero cumulative impact analysis has ever been done for Triple B wild horses. 

Instead of there being any management plan (HMAP) for wild horses that the mine needed to comply with, all BLM did was put Triple B back on the roundup schedule without even a  Determination of NEPA Adequacy.

The mining EIS notes the management plans for mule deer, sage grouse, etc. Of course livestock mitigation was discussed and BLM took a separate track and had already approved new fencing and water pipelines for cows. But there was not even any process in which the damage to wild horses and habitat was even recognized. In fact, the way it was handled you would think wild horses damage mines.

This HMA/HA Complex is not contiguous acres, but a maze of livestock fencing and mining roads that creates small isolated pockets of wild horses where several of these pockets are so isolated, and water drawdown so severe already, we see emergency removals.

So we filed additional legal action against the mining EIS

BLM and the mine are claiming we are not harmed by any of this. They are also claiming that we do not have substantial interest in the preservation of a herd we have been documenting and advocating for… for over 16 years.  We have an interest in the roundup plan… but not the driving factors like habitat loss? That seems a bit of a stretch, but that is what they are claiming. (Yes, we are not just up against BLM attorneys but the plethora of mining attorneys and unlimited funding of Kinross – KG Mines).

We are fighting back. Why do we even have to? Shouldn’t BLM be aware that this is critical habitat ? Shouldn’t BLM be obligated to mitigate that damage by creating water improvements, removing some livestock fencing or returning the adjacent Herd Area (HA or “designated for horse use but removed”)?

Because we have to fight the absurd claim that we are not harmed, we cannot get the Administrative Record yet to even see if there are more issues that need to be included in our brief (remember a lawsuit is not where the court does the research and makes your argument, you have to do it). This makes our job that much harder…. while lawyers from DoJ and the mine are pulling in a few hundred dollars an hour, our volunteers are doing our very best to push back just to get some water and grazing land back… to mitigate damages BLM should have recognized and dealt with 2 years ago as the drafting of the EIS began!

WHE has 2 active legal actions: One in federal civil court addressing the gather plan EA and one on Appeal against a mine.

Our wild horses and burros are shortchanged at every single step of this process while the land set aside for their use is given away time and again.

Wild horses and burros are free-roaming in name only. They are managed behind politically-set boundaries and cannot leave if habitat is destroyed like the deer or elk can.

We are fighting back. Together, we must stand strong and continue to speak for our wild ones AND the resources they need to survive.

We do need your support to keep our teams in field and in the courts. 

Thank you for keeping WHE running for the wild!