North Lander, Wyoming. Stallion watches as the herd is pushed by chopped toward the trap. July, 2024
2024 has been a record breaking year on many fronts.
As BLM accelerated removals to record numbers, our team took to the field to keep you informed. In July alone, more wild horses and burros were removed than in the entire years of 2013, 2014, 2015… This devastating plan was birthed in a corporate lobby document first incorporated into BLM funding requests in 2018 (first under the name “Ten Years to AML” ) and funding began to balloon in 2020. The “Path Forward” gained momentum and you saw it in full force in 2024.
Our investigative teams continued to track wild horses to uncover the continued unacceptable death rates in facilities post-capture log an average 12% death rate that can reach as high as 20% (or 1 in 5) in vulnerable population segments such as Jennies (female burros).
Blue Wing is home to the extremely rare (and endangered) paint burro. BLM has no plan to protect these burros and does what is called a “gate cut removal.”
We have fought back.
In 2024 two court cases won rulings that cracked the shell of BLMs secretive and data poor on range program. We not only set precedent in court that BLM has illegally withheld actual management plans (called Herd Management Area Plans, HMAP) we solidified that precedent in a second victory. BLM skips right to gather/fertility control planning that limits analysis to keep the agenda and misinformation rolling over our herds without ever doing anything to protect herd and their critical resource needs. In 2025, our fight must take this battle to conclusion to ensure BLM meets their responsibilities to the public and our wild ones. In 2024, we began that fight and have 3 more cases active in the courts right now and are looking to expand.
We have also taken on the secretive system of capture and holding in court, right now. Our litigation opened roundups to public view a decade ago. Today, we are fighting in the courts as BLM creates a secretive “off-limits to the public” system of holding and creates undue restrictions during capture. If we cannot see it, we cannot change it. The obstacles BLM throws up to avoid creating an enforceable welfare policy are mind boggling.
Gaining funding specifically for actual data-based management planning, a science-based review of the program and enforceable welfare rules is gaining traction with lawmakers in 2024. We cannot lose ground. You can learn more and take action as spending bills for 2025 are still being debated.
Wild horses escape trap at the ongoing Triple B roundup where our team is out, since day one, keeping you informed. We are not only reporting from the roundup, we have active litigation aimed at gaining transparency and actual management plans to protect the ability of this herd to survive so that there will be a “Triple B” herd for future generations to see. This herd has been a “hard target” of BLM because it sits on ground used by politically powerful permittees and a sought after gold mining trend. The survival of Triple B is in real jeopardy and we are not simply “raising awareness,” we are fighting back.
We need your help. WHE has no corporate sponsorship or partners. WHE has no big money pockets sitting on our board. WHE has no celebrity endorsements.
ALL of our work is possible because of YOU. Every mile we can travel on the range. Every investigation. Every court case. Every meeting we have to educate lawmakers. Absolutely everything we do… is because of you.
Just like you, WHE won’t back down. Raising awareness is important. But at WHE we know that raising awareness alone will not move the needle to stop abuses on and off the range. Awareness alone is not enough to stop the decades long abuses of power from continuing to use the Wild Horse and Burro program as a political tool. Together, we will continue to take a strong stand for our wild ones.
We have two weeks left to unlock a $10,000 match challenge. In the last 3 weeks we have raised just over 3k. In the next two weeks we need to raise nearly $7,000. to unlock this critical end-of-year match. The match challenge will run through Giving Tuesday.
Thank you for keeping WHE running for the wild.
Several of you have asked if WHE has a calendar. We have three designs, one brand new for 2025, that you can choose from in our Zazzle storefront HERE. They are now 25% off with code: BLKFRIDEAL08 All sale proceeds support our work.
Roundups, 2024
Relentless high speed chases of solo wild horses has become an all too common occurrence during roundups.
Fiscal 2024 team reporting
Sands Basin/Four Mile Emergency (ID)
Fiscal 2025
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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