As 2025 comes to a close, we stand at a turning point where years of field work, documentation, and litigation are poised to drive real reform in 2026 for America’s wild horses and burros if we continue to fight for it.

February will usher in the year of the Fire Horse just as the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act turns 55, underscoring what is at stake for the next half-century of protection.

A year of hard work

In 2025, WHE teams were on the ground at roundups, in courtrooms, and in agency offices, pushing back against abuse, secrecy, and the erosion of habitat. From documenting handling at operations like Devil’s Garden (we were the only ones onsite at trap every single day) while awaiting a key court ruling (where the court has stated repeatedly we have a high likelihood of success), to tracking how agency decisions favor livestock and extraction over wild horses, WHE’s field work once again supplied the evidence needed to challenge unlawful management.

New records forced out through FOIA litigation exposed internal Bureau of Land Management emails that confirmed years of advocacy warnings: the agency has repeatedly sidelined the law, ignored its own data, and treated wild horses as obstacles instead of protected wild animals owed transparency and humane care. Those documents are now fueling both ongoing lawsuits and renewed calls for congressional and public oversight in 2026.

We had another court victory that proves BLM has failed to create management planning relying on continuing simply removal plans based in agreements with permittees at Stone Cabin/Saulsbury.

WHE successfully joined with others when the budget bill threatened to remove protections against killing health wild horses and burros and sales without limits to restore protection.

We protested a pipeline that would impact seven HMAs over hundreds of miles. The BLM now has to ditch that plan and look at new routes.

See our year-end rundown HERE

Lawsuits setting the stage in 2026 

In 2025, WHE’s legal team built on precedent-setting wins, especially at the Pancake Complex, where a federal court struck down a mass roundup plan and condemned BLM’s “nothing short of egregious” failure to complete a Herd Management Area Plan for nearly four decades. That victory did not end with a single gather plan; WHE filed new litigation to force BLM to create lawful, data-driven management plans at Pancake that can serve as a model—and a warning—for other herds.

At the same time, WHE continued active cases challenging long-term, multi-year removal plans and First Amendment restrictions at complexes like Blue Wing, where courts have already agreed that management planning was illegally withheld. These cases, together with actions defending herds targeted through backdoor deals with permittees in places like Carter Reservior, are moving toward critical decisions in 2026 that can reshape how BLM applies the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act on the range.

2026: Toward real reform

Several of the lawsuits filed or advanced in 2025 are scheduled for key hearings, rulings, or settlement deadlines in 2026, giving advocates a concrete chance to turn courtroom victories into durable reforms on the ground. These cases seek more than one-time fixes: they aim to force BLM to complete lawful herd management plans, respect science-based thresholds for range health, and end the practice of using “emergencies” and vague programmatic documents to justify perpetual removals.

2026: Fire Horse year and 55 years of the law

February 2026 marks the beginning of the lunar Year of the Fire Horse, a symbol long associated with courage, intensity, and a refusal to be broken—qualities that echo both the spirit of the wild herds and the tenacity of those who defend them.In the same year, the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act will turn 55, a reminder that a law born out of public outrage in 1971 must be actively enforced, not merely celebrated in rhetoric.

For WHE, this convergence is a call to action: to use every tool—field documentation, public education, congressional engagement, and strategic litigation—to ensure that the Act’s promise of “wild and free-roaming” horses and burros on their historic ranges becomes a lived reality in policy and practice.

The year of the Fire Horse offers a chance to ignite long-delayed reforms, so that when the Act reaches its 60th anniversary, the story told will be one of restored habitats, transparent management, and herds that still run free

Please consider a contribution to help us continue to fight for justice, mercy and freedom. 

Happy New Year!