June, 2025

So many of you are reaching out to us about Heber. We hear you.

Since late 2018, the Heber Wild Horse Territory has quietly become a crime scene. Federally protected wild horses have been found shot and left where they fell, their bodies discovered along forest roads and among the pines. Despite repeated incidents over multiple years, no one has been held accountable, turning this small Arizona herd into a stark example of how the protections promised under the 1971 Wild Free‑Roaming Horses and Burros Act can break down on the ground and given no respect from those that oppose wild horses and, sadly, from those paid by the taxpayer to carry out the law.

So far in 2026 alone, at least 13 additional Heber wild horses have been shot to death, adding to the dozens of confirmed gunshot killings recorded there since 2018.

March, 2026

The unresolved shootings since 2018, including the 13 horses killed in 2026, have deepened the public’s distrust in the agency’s ability to safeguard the herd even as it assumes greater authority to capture and remove horses under the new plan.

In 2026, the U.S. Forest Service finalized a Heber Wild Horse Territory (WHT) management plan that exists only because a 2007 federal settlement compelled the agency to develop such a plan after advocates challenged an unlawful roundup. From an advocate’s perspective, the resulting Territory Management Plan is legally and ethically suspect: it disregards the spirit of the 1971 Wild Free‑Roaming Horses and Burros Act, subordinates a federally protected herd to commercial livestock, and was crafted through a process that, seems to have “procedure,” but fails to safeguard the Heber horses’ long‑term viability.

The history of Heber also creates distrust that USFS will, finally, comply with the 1971 Act and associated law to protect Heber wild horses.

In 1989, the Forest Service entered into a multi‑year removal agreement with permittees on the Gentry Allotment, which covers a large portion of the Heber Wild Horse Territory. Under that arrangement, ranchers were authorized and paid to capture wild horses on the allotment, haul them to auction, and dispose of them, year after year.

By quietly bleeding the herd down through this long‑running (unlawful) agreement rather than through a formal wild horse gather process, the agency later pointed to a 1993 count of “two mares” and used its own manufactured decline to claim there were effectively no Heber wild horses left to protect.

It ultimately took a federal lawsuit to force the Forest Service to do what the law already required: recognize that the Heber Wild Horse Territory still exists, acknowledge the herd as protected wild horses under the 1971 Act, and stop treating them as disposable “trespass” animals.

Through the 2007 court‑approved stipulation, USFS had to admit in writing that the territory had never been dissolved and agree that it would refrain from gathering or removing horses on the Heber/Black Mesa/Lakeside districts until it completed a full environmental analysis and a written management plan under NEPA. In other words, only after advocates went to court did the agency finally agree to move Heber management out of the shadows of side agreements and into the official NEPA process where the public could see, comment on, and challenge what it was doing.

March, 2026

Right now

In a nutshell, the 2026 Heber plan authorizes USFS to drive the herd down to an AML of 50–104 horses and then keep it there using ongoing gathers, fertility control, and “excess” removals tied to range‑monitoring thresholds.

The idea that a wild horse that has wandered out of the territory (or is the descendant of one) is not a “wild horse” under law and is “unauthorized livestock” simply does not hold up under the law. Forest Service regulations define wild free‑roaming horses as “all unbranded and unclaimed horses and burros and their progeny that have used lands of the National Forest System on or after December 15, 1971, or do hereafter use these lands as all or part of their habitat.” [36 CFR 222.60(b)(13)]. That language is about use of National Forest lands “as all or part of their habitat,” not just about a narrow, administratively drawn territory line. Any plan or activity that asserts otherwise is not in compliance with regulations.

Unbranded, unclaimed Heber horses that have used the national forest as their habitat since 1971—whether on or beyond the current WHT line—are wild free‑roaming horses under federal law, and the Forest Service cannot lawfully downgrade them to “unauthorized livestock” just because they followed grass and water beyond a boundary that was drawn too small in the first place to make removals “easier or cheaper” for them.

If horse are “baited” onto private lands in order to make a claim of “unauthorized livestock,” that could be a blatant federal offense.  (Every year there are roundups done of horses that leave public lands and enter private. In each case, these are wild horses under law and must be treated as such.)

Below: We are getting a lot of calls from volunteers and the public about asserted “wild horse” traps being constructed apparently by the same people in the 1989 agreement. 

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If the Forest Service begins trapping Heber horses under this plan, it is legally bound by its own Heber Territory Management Plan to ensure that every trap and every handling practice complies with the Comprehensive Animal Welfare Standards and the plan’s design criteria—and anything that looks like a barbed‑wire throwback to 1989 is not compliant.

The CAWS provision in the territory plan requires that when jute is hung on an existing wire fence in a trap, that wire must be rolled up and removed or dropped and bundled at ground level “in such a way that minimizes possibility of entanglement by horses.”

Under that standard, a trap or holding corral literally constructed out of barbed wire—where horses can hit or become entangled in the wire—is plainly out of bounds.

There are additional CAWS and design‑criteria provisions that such a trap or corral would violate, and if this is new construction, it would require a permit even if it were intended for cattle or sheep. If this, in fact, is to catch wild horses, the trap would need to be approved by USFS and the contractor provided with the CAWS standards and guidance through the “Contracting Officers Representative” or “COR.” No matter where a wild horse trap is constructed (inside the WHT, on public lands outside the WHT, on private lands) it must comply with CAWS.

In our conversations with the USFS field office, there has been no new construction permit authorized and no “capture contract” signed, even as reports of makeshift traps surface on the ground. Our interaction with the National Office has been brief, but they are now aware.

Our legal team is engaging the agency on these issues, because Heber is already a powder keg. We will keep you updated. We are looking to see what the organizations that were part of the 2007 action are engaged in. 

With a long history of quiet private removals, a new plan that prioritizes removals and suppression, and an ongoing pattern of unsolved shootings, this herd cannot afford another slide back into a “wild west” era of side deals and barbed‑wire traps—where wild horses that should be protected are instead pushed straight toward the slaughter pipeline.

What happens next at Heber will show whether the Forest Service intends to honor the law, its own welfare standards, and the public trust—or whether it will continue to treat these wild horses as a problem to be managed away.

We are receiving your messages and may not have time to respond to everyone. We will update you as we have more information on how USFS intends to proceed and if we can find any more details concerning these corral pens and traps.

Every mile we travel to cover roundups or assess a herd, every court case we bring, every win, every action we take is only possible because of your support.