A brutal year on the range
2025 opened with helicopters over the desert and dust clouds rising around terrified bands, as more than 8,000 wild horses and burros were targeted in roundups across the West. Each image of a chopper pressing a mare and foal, a cramped trap pen, or a trailer gate slamming shut represents a life ripped from the range and a family shattered.
Bearing witness at roundups
From Twin Peaks (California) to Adobe Town (art of the Rock Springs plan in Wyoming) WHE’s cameras were there—documenting horses spilling from an unsecured trailer door, relentless pursuit of single horses, and burros collapsing under stress. These images show what official government reports never do.
Inside holding and the cost of captivity
Their story moves behind the fences, where babies and older horses struggle with disease, injury, and the long-term stress of confinement. Photographs of overcrowded pens, sick burros, and individual animals, many of which did not survive, tell the truth about what “management” has become when removals replace real planning. Our continued investigations show the real average death rate is 12% and it can go as high as 24%.
Turning pain into legal power
The picture can shift: legal filings, court orders, and hearing days show how field documentation became the backbone of major cases like Stone Cabin/Saulsbury and the Pancake Complex. Each courtroom case includes an advocate with a stack of documents and a heart laced with experiences that never fade, turned into another step toward forcing agencies to create real management plans and humane standards.
Exposing welfare failures and policy fights
A breakthrough came when internal agency emails and documents finally confirmed what the images have shown for years: BLM never finished the process to create enforceable welfare rules. Truth, once exposed, can ripple out to the public and Congress. 2026 can be the year we finally obtain what was once thought impossible… a real welfare policy!
Community, loss, and resilience
2025 was also the year WHE’s main social media page was hacked, cutting off years of reach overnight, even as roundups and litigation intensified. The targeted attack was meant to stop us. The launch of the new one, and supporters helping amplify updates capture both the vulnerability and resilience of this grassroots work.
Carrying the fight into 2026
These final images return us to the range: foals at their mothers’ sides, stallions standing guard, bands moving across the landscape they call home.
We hold this vision as we prepare for the new year.
WHE continues to work hard to ensure that in next year’s “year in pictures,” more wild horses and burros are still on the land, not dying in a corral or found in a killpen far from the ranges they call home.
Thank you for standing with us.
Thank you for standing for Justice, Mercy and Freedom.
Thank you for standing with Wild Horse Education at the close of this difficult, pivotal year. Together, we can make sure that what came to light in 2025 and the lawsuits begun lead to real change in 2026—for every wild horse and burro captive or free on our public lands.
Categories: Lead
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