Our team has been working to protect the last of the Devil’s Garden wild horses.

Press Release

Advocates Renew Emergency TRO to Stop USFS Lawlessness at Devil’s Garden

(Alturas, CA) On Wednesday, advocates Bonnie Kohleriter, Mary Koncel, Laura Leigh, and the organization Wild Horse Education (WHE) filed a renewed Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction against the United States Forest Service (USFS), exposing an escalating pattern of misrepresentation, secrecy, and unlawful conduct in the management of the Devil’s Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory.

Over the course of this litigation, USFS has repeatedly said one thing in court and done another on the ground, demonstrating a blatant disconnect between its sworn representations and its actual actions. In plain terms, the agency has shown that it cannot be trusted to tell the truth about what it is doing to this federally protected herd.

“The staff of the USFS in the Modoc County are defying the 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Law as well as the court by performing continuous illegal activities that are leading this treasured herd of horses to gradual, but certain extirpation,” stated Bonnie Kohleriter.

In their latest violation, USFS repeatedly assured both the court and the Plaintiffs that no stallions would be gelded and no adoption preparation would occur before a census flight determined how many wild horses must be returned to the range. That promise was false.

During the government shutdown—while USFS attorneys claimed there were no available staff to conduct the census—122 stallions were captured, and 74 of them were quietly gelded at the Double Devil Wild Horse Corrals in Alturas, CA between October 28 and November 19. USFS has attempted to dismiss this as a “miscommunication” between senior leadership and corral staff, even though these actions took place at the very same time government attorneys were assuring the court that no such preparations would occur.

Plaintiffs’ renewed motion details a long list of falsehoods and shifting stories presented to the court, including USFS’s statement during a hearing that the roundup would end on September 29. In reality, on-site observers were told USFS intended to keep capturing wild horses because it had not hit its self-imposed target, and public observation was then completely shut down—forcing Plaintiffs to engage the agency only through counsel.

“Lack of transparency and accountability has always been the USFS playbook at Devil’s Garden,” said plaintiff Mary Koncel. “Calling the mass gelding of stallions a ‘miscommunication’ is absurd, especially when paired with the agency’s insistence on continuing the roundup until it reached its arbitrary goal of 350 horses. The only consistent thread is USFS’s intent to eliminate the Devil’s Garden wild horses.”

The motion makes clear: this is not a one-off mistake, but a documented pattern. Plaintiffs state that USFS has repeatedly acted without legal authority in order to serve livestock interests and undermine the genetic and demographic viability of the Devil’s Garden herd. Enough is enough; when a federal agency disregards the law and a federal court, its conduct must have consequences.

Plaintiffs’ counsel, who has litigated numerous wild horse cases on public lands, notes that no other agency has so brazenly ignored its obligations under the Wild Horse Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)—or lied so frequently in the course of litigation.

The initial lawsuit was filed on August 27 after USFS announced it would launch a roundup in less than two weeks under a defunct 2017 plan, without completing the new plan it began in 2022. USFS never lawfully established that “excess” wild horses exist, and it repeatedly changed its population estimates both before and during the operation, even as the gather threatened to strip nearly every horse from the Devil’s Garden landscape.

Throughout briefing and hearings, the court has repeatedly indicated that advocates have a strong likelihood of success on the merits, acknowledging that USFS appears to have lacked legal authority for the roundup from the start. All wild horses were to be held without adoption preparation, gelding, or any fertility control measures until a census flight was completed and the court issued a ruling, and one potential remedy remains returning all captured wild horses to the range.

USFS was well aware that the court could order the horses returned, yet the agency moved ahead with gelding stallions as if court oversight and federal law simply did not matter. This behavior underscores not only contempt for the rule of law, but also a calculated attempt to make any future court-ordered return of a viable herd more difficult or impossible.

“It appears USFS staff intend to do whatever they want, regardless of facts, law, or basic decency,” said Laura Leigh, President of Wild Horse Education. “From the outset, their goal has been to appease livestock permittees and their partner, the Farm Bureau—launching a roundup without establishing legal authority or excess horses, ordering infertility drugs they had no authority to use, and, when faced with the possibility the court might send horses back, racing to geld stallions as if their only obligation is to livestock interests. This lawsuit is essential to hold them accountable, and we will not stop.”

Plaintiffs are asking the court to return all the remaining wild horses and to allow independent observers on the census flight due to the lack of trust in anything USFS says.

Plaintiffs are represented by Greenfire Law, PC of Berkeley, California.

You can view the Motion HERE.

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