The Fish Creek roundup of 2025 has ended.
194 (91 Stallions, 100 Mares, and 3 Foals) wild horses were captured. BLM said the estimated 245 wild horses were in the 250,000 acre Herd Management Area (HMA) before the roundup and declared 144 of them as “excess.” (230,000 acres of Fish Creek are now south of highway 50, the focus of this removal. The northern portion of Fish Creek was part of the Roberts Mountain Complex roundup of 2024.)
BLM released 23 mares back to the range. The mares were treated with PZP-22 (6 of them had been treated at previous roundups and were re-treated prior to release). BLM said 6 of the mares were Curlies.
BLM released 27 studs. BLM said 6 of the studs were Curlies.
The total number of wild horses released was 50. Only one release site was chosen. Wild horses captured on both the western border with Pancake and the eastern border of the HMA were released near the east trap site location.
If the BLM population estimate was correct, that leaves 101 wild horses left in the portion of Fish Creek south of highway 50.
112 (57 Stallions, 53 Mares, and 2 Foals) were shipped to the off-limits to public viewing facility in Winnemucca, Nevada. We are aware that leaves a discrepancy of 32 wild horses (a semi-load) unaccounted for. BLM may not have fully updated the website and we will update this section when we know more.
At the recent Advisory Board meeting your were given the impression that BLM has a “policy” for welfare that includes facilities and things like shelter from the elements. There is no shelter at Winnemucca. During the only tour ever allowed of this facility our team lead asked asked if this facility would put in sprinklers for dust control, shade or shelter from rain and snow, the reply from BLM was “It’s not in the contract.”
Most of you do not know that even if a facility or gather contractor repeatedly fails welfare assessment (or scores with violations) it plays no part in determining if BLM will ship animals to a facility. The only real benchmark is “bid per head.” In other words, the cheapest bid gets the horses.
The facility was built in a flood zone. The only tour ever offered of the facility was in May of 2024.
We cannot track our beloved Fish Creek horses into holding. We cannot tell you how they are being cared for. All we can do is file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and wait months to complete the “by the numbers” wrap up of this operation.
In the coming months you may see a few Fish Creek horses on an Internet Adoption.
Pre-roundup background and daily team updates HERE.
Those of you that have read This Land, by Christopher Ketcham are familiar with Fish Creek already. The HMA is featured in his sweeping look at public lands and the coopting of our fast disappearing public lands by western ranching cultures and mining.
In 2015, BLM sad they would begin a data-collection program that included Congressionally mandated fertility control (via remote darting) to maintain compliance with land use planning. The project was to begin at twice high AML (around 400 wild horses) and monitor range conditions, utilization patterns and work to set a data-based AML and determine actual impacts from wild horses, the impacts of removal, etc. (while doing only small removals if data warranted). The data would have been used to craft a real Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) to address all the flaws of the past. Both livestock and a portion of advocacy itself viciously attacked the attempt, some just fighting over who would dart, giving BLM a reason to bail on the entire project.
Instead of having a template on how to begin to “set decisions on a dat-based path,” at the end of the ten-year gather plan, BLM has left only 101 wild horses on the HMA without ever validating by data the AML, forage allocations, boundary lines, scientific determination of foaling season (that is skewed every single time fertility control is applied). BLM also dismantled a critical water source named in every management document available for Fish Creek under pressure from the county and livestock operators. The promises made to the horses released in 2016 (after we undertook an intense “beat-the-clock” court battle to get them returned) were all broken by BLM…. and the range is filled with cattle while mining just outside the boundary line (drawn on a map with a pencil in the 70s) gets approval.
Fish Creek is a painful repetition of decades of agency actions being driven by politics and personal agenda.
The low number of wild horses left in Fish Creek will begin to reap the consequences of the low genetic pool within a generation. One more HMA added to the long list of the tragic story of America’s wild horses and burros.
Our legal team is working on an update. Our team has been working hard through the holiday season and into the new year.
We have follow-ups on the two court wins last year to protect two other herds. We also have an update on the case to preserve the historic Stone Cabin/Saulsbury herds, the case against the denial of wild horse advocates to address habitat and resource loss from mining, the filing against the Winnemucca facility, the ongoing lawsuit to protect the Antelope and Triple B Complexes (the largest in the nation) and more coming soon.
In 2024, meeting with BLM leadership in DC, it was confirmed that the agency itself sees any change (using their words) as “litigation driven only.” In other words, they are not going to change unless we sue. That means we must work hard to expand this critical arm of WHE if we hope to achieve any real reform.
Our team is working hard in the field and in the courts. Without your support, none of our work is possible. Thank you for keeping WHE running for our wild ones!
Categories: Wild Horse Education
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