Day 4, Adobe Town HMA

The Adobe Town Herd Management Area (HMA) roundup has begun under a cloud of confusion and conflicting tracks of sadness and celebration. That cloud still lingers and even more questions are arising.

We are creating this stand-alone page in hopes that it can serve as an answer to the majority of emails and messages we are receiving about the ongoing roundup. 

On our “daily update” page for the operation we gave a brief summary of history of the latest court case and ruling. * The Rock Springs RMP case is not our case. Usually, if it is not our case, we simply direct you to look to one of the entities on the case and ask them. However, the majority of you emailing us are saying you have reached out to them and either got no answer or one that did not make sense to you because the roundup is moving forward. So we are doing this article.

AS OF THIS MOMENT

In a nutshell, the Tenth Circuit court said that BLM cannot ignore, gloss over or simply discount environmental factors when they make management decisions. This is powerful language and really important (and is a win) to have particularly where BLM determined to “zero out” horses because of conflicts with ranchers, mining, etc. as most of these decisions have had nothing to do with “what the land can sustain,” but what humans tolerate.

Then they “reversed and remanded” the decision back to the lower court (district court) to rehear (or settle). We think this may be where the confusion is coming from. The BLM gather plan Environmental Assessment (EA) was not “reversed and remanded.” The lower courts ruling on a case involving the Resource Management Plan (RMP) was sent back to the lower court to allow further briefing on environmental review and to consider those issues in a ruling addressing the legality of “zeroing out” without considering environmental factors.

To understand the confusion and, more importantly the type of questions we need to be asking, is really only a matter of understanding vocabulary. None of this is that complicated. The system simply uses words most of you are not familiar with.

Below: Day 4, run 1, Adobe Town HMA

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Maps above include rough outlines and represent estimates.

Vocabulary needed: Herd Area (HA) are the original boundary lines drawn after the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act designating land for use by wild horses and burros. Herd Management Area (HMA) boundaries were carved out of HA lands and represent where BLM decided to manage wild horses and burros omitting (or “zeroing out” by setting a population level of “0”) of wild horses/burros. The big red “x’s” in the slide represent where BLM “reverted” HMAs to HAs in the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP) amendment that is the subject of the court case that has many of you confused after a lot of misleading statements on social media.

A Resource Management Plan (RMP) or Land Use Plan (LUP) is a set of parameters for management. They are not documents approving or directing a specific action, but “allowing” for that action.

Roundups (what BLM calls “Gather”) are done under another set of documents created through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

An “RMP” is a district wide (not specific to the HMA, but for everything) management plan. A “Gather” is a proposed activity that tiers to management planning. A management plan does not become effective immediately and time has to lapse. A finalized specific action  becomes “full force and effect” immediately after it is signed. Those of you following the Herd Management Area Plan vs Gather Plan court cases understand why BLM trying to lump a gather plan (action) and Herd Management Area Plan (management parameters( into the same document is simply “not ok” (and really bizarre according to BLM’s own rules).

Day 4, Adobe Town HMA

For the “Rock Springs” summer roundups of 2025 there were 2 “Gather Plan” documents released: One was a new Gather Environmental Assessment to zero out Great Divide Basin, Salt Wells Creek and part of Adobe Town” reverting them to HA. The other was a “Determination of NEPA Adequacy” or DNA that said they do not have to do another analysis to bring the part of Adobe Town that will remain an HMA to “Appropriate Management Level.”

On July 1, long before the court ruling the BLM split the HMA part of the roundup from the HA part of the roundup making people think it had something to do with the court case… but it was because contracts had to be written to tier to two different roundup plan EAs, nothing more. The later start date for the HAs is not tied to the court decision of July 15.

Technically, both of those roundup plans still remain intact as written.

In a perfect world where there were some type of “decorum,” BLM would concede to operate under the 2021 roundup plan that covers all of these areas. In other words, they will NOT work to achieve any goal beyond those stated in the 2021 plan (getting to the numbers pre-RMP amendment).

We are hoping that by Monday (or early in the week) there will be more documents filed that lend more clarity. We will keep you posted. 

BLM has not voluntarily changed goals to those pre-2023 RMP revision.

The map above shows in dark red the boundary of the new (post 2023 RMP) Adobe Town HMA and the (rough) location of trapping to date (traps form a sort of sweeping pattern day 1 at top and day 3-5 at bottom).

The roundup happening now is of the Adobe Town HMA. The roundup started in the HA area, the area where the roundup is not supposed to start until August 25. Appropriate Management Level (AML) in the Adobe Town HMA was lowered in the RMP Amendment to 259–536 from 610-800.  

The numbers on the BLM gather schedule and website have not changed.

Right now, the goal of the Adobe Town HMA roundup underway right now is to reach the low AML post RMP amendment of 259 left on range. The operation happening now has a target of 259–536, the number noted in the 2023 RMP Amendment. 

Right now, in field, the goals of both “gather plans” remain at the post-RMP Amendment goals (numbers that include “0”). 

People are misinterpreting “remand” to the lower court as “remanding” of BLM’s roundup plans and that is simply not true. It is not true right now. This is a dynamic situation and things could change. We will let you know as we have more info.

We will let you know as fast as possible should things change as far as court orders and targets in field. 

The roundup

You can follow our team reporting by clicking HERE.

Our team is working on an update on several of our lawsuits from Antelope and Triple B to Stone Cabin.

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Your support keeps our teams in the field, our investigations running and our litigation alive. Together, we will take a strong stand to defend our precious wild ones.