Tuscany, incredible Carter

April 27 Hearing: Why This Wild Horse Case Matters

On April 27, the lawsuit over the Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith wild horses reaches its first major turning point, and it is an important one: the court will decide whether this case can move forward in full or whether parts of it will be cut away before the public ever gets a real hearing on the underlying facts.

This moment matters not only for these three herds, but for everyone who believes public lands management should be transparent, science-based, and accountable to law.

CRMI and Wild Horse Education stand together as a community of advocates, researchers, photographers, and neighbors, supported by a wider community of readers and supporters to whom we are deeply grateful. For decades, the plaintiffs in this case have been out on these ranges and in researching records: enjoying the herds, documenting their lives, conducting range, historic, and genetic studies, and building a shared body of knowledge grounded in deep love and concern. That lived experience and unity are what bring this case to the court, and what keep us striving for justice for Carter, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith

What hearing is taking place?

The April 27 hearing is about the federal case in the Eastern District of California brought by Carter Reservoir Mustangs Inc. (CRMI), Wild Horse Education (WHE), and individual plaintiffs.

At this hearing, the court is not yet deciding whether BLM’s gather plan is lawful on the merits. That is not what this hearing is about. Instead, the court will hear BLM’s Motion to Dismiss, which asks the judge to throw out all or part of the case before the evidence and full administrative record are reviewed. (But BLM’s motions are not the only ones before the court, ours are too.)

What does the lawsuit challenge?

The lawsuit challenges five BLM decisions that, together, form the management framework now being used against the Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith herds.

The 1981 Cowhead–Massacre Management Framework Plan, which established early boundaries and wild horse population levels (without actual data and true analysis deciding to simply prioritize domestic livestock because they want to).

The 1985/1989 Carter Reservoir Herd Management Area Plan, which reduced Carter’s HMA acreage and reinforced low Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs) (again, without analysis).

The 2003 Carter Reservoir AML Establishment/Capture Plan, which created the Carter AML still relied on today (which essentially simply carries over the nontransparent AML in previous documents).

The 2008 Surprise Resource Management Plan, the broad public-lands plan for this region (which simply carried previous non-analysis conclusions forward).

The 2025 Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith Wild Horse Gather and Population Control Plan, which authorizes major removals and fertility control across all three HMAs (without doing the promised Herd Management Area Plan revisions to rectify the errors in previous documents and instead relying on those documents as fact and data-based).

The core issue is simple: BLM is relying on decades-old planning decisions and low AMLs to justify a 2025 gather plan with potentially devastating consequences for these herds.

What is BLM asking the court to do?

The agency’s motion makes two main arguments.

Standing: BLM argues that the plaintiffs have not shown the kind of specific legal injury needed to be in federal court.

Statute of limitations: BLM argues that the older planning decisions from 1981, 1989, 2003, and 2008 were challenged too late and should be dismissed as time-barred.

Plaintiffs, however, have alleged long-term aesthetic, recreational, scientific, educational, conservation, and economic injury tied directly to these herds and these ranges, including repeated visits, documentation, public education, and business impacts connected to wild horse viewing and their own specific rights as stakeholders.

What will this hearing actually decide?

The April 27 hearing will help determine the scope of the case.

That means the judge will decide whether this lawsuit can remain a broad challenge to the full planning structure behind the 2025 gather, or whether it will be narrowed to only a smaller piece of the controversy.

The court will focus on three practical questions:

Who has standing to sue? The judge will evaluate whether the individual and organizational plaintiffs have shown concrete harm tied to the challenged actions.

Can older planning decisions still be challenged now? The judge will decide whether the 1981, 1989, 2003, and 2008 plans are too old to review, or whether they can still be examined because they are the very foundation of the 2025 gather plan opening up a challenge as no new analysis on these facts has been made.

Can the court still provide meaningful relief? The judge will consider whether setting aside unlawful planning decisions or the 2025 gather plan could still protect the herds going forward.

This is why the hearing matters so much. It will determine whether the court looks at only one gather plan, or at the entire chain of decisions that led to this crisis.

Why Carter is at the center of concern

One of the clearest examples of what is at stake is the Carter Reservoir herd.

According to the 2025 planning framework now being challenged, BLM wants to remove Carter wild horses to a (low) AML of just 25 horses.

Plaintiffs have argued that numbers this low are not management in any meaningful conservation sense. They are a blueprint for functional extinction: a herd reduced to such a small size that it cannot maintain meaningful genetic diversity, demographic resilience, or natural herd behavior over time.

The concern becomes even more serious when fertility control is layered on top of that tiny population. BLM’s current plan relies on heavy use of GonaCon, a long-acting fertility control vaccine, meaning that a large share of the few mares left on the range could be rendered infertile at the very moment the herd is already pushed to the edge.

A Carter herd managed to 25 horses, with roughly 15 mares treated with GonaCon, would not represent recovery or healthy stewardship. It would represent a population managed so low that its future becomes biologically and functionally precarious.

That is one reason why this issue resonates far beyond one herd. If any other wildlife population with unique genetic markers were reduced to numbers this small, while much of its breeding capacity was simultaneously suppressed, that situation would more likely trigger emergency protective concern than be presented as an acceptable long-term management target.

Why the public should pay attention

This case is not just about a courtroom argument over legal procedure. It is about whether the public gets a meaningful chance to challenge decades of management decisions before herds are reduced to levels that may not be recoverable.

If the court allows the broader case to move forward, BLM may have to defend not only the 2025 gather plan, but also the older AML and land-use decisions that support it. If the case is narrowed, the legal fight continues, but on a more limited front.

Either way, this hearing is an opening, not an ending. It is a chance to insist that science, law, and public accountability still matter on our public lands.

Showing up matters

The spirit that unites CRMI, Wild Horse Education, and the individual plaintiffs is simple: progress does not happen in silence. It happens when people who love these horses and these lands show up, together. For years, this coalition has returned to the Carter, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith ranges in every season, watching generations of wild horses, documenting changes on the ground, and sounding the alarm when decisions on paper threatened lives on the range.

CRMI and WHE are standing shoulder to shoulder with a broader community that reads, shares, donates, attends hearings, and refuses to look away. It is the combined decades of experience—field observation, range and historic research, genetic work, and simple, persistent presence—that give weight to this case and meaning to the word “justice.”

On April 27, the court will decide how much of this story it is willing to hear.

We will bring that story forward and stand in unity for these herds

Our legal team is really busy this season in Federal Civil Court cases like Carter/Buckhorn/Coppersmith, Devil’s Garden, Pancakes and Stone Cabin (now in the Ninth Circuit). We also carry 14 administrative appeals.

You can learn more about administrative appeals including the stand for burros at Tassi-Gold, click here. 

Right now your contribution will be matched in honor of National Volunteer Week and Earth Day!

Through May 1, your gift will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000. 

We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team ready to run the roundup schedule. 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.