The Bureau of Land Management has released the Stone Cabin Complex and Little Fish Lake Herd Management Area Plan and Gather Plan Environmental Assessment, and public comments are due by June 14, 2026.

The proposal covers both a roundup plan and what BLM is calling an updated HMAP for Stone Cabin and the first ever HMAP for Saulsbury, and Little Fish Lake.

Unfortunately, the BLM project page is not very user-friendly for public participation. The page contains the “Participate Now” button, but it does not clearly provide a backup email, due date, or mailing address for comment submission if that feature does not work for you. Any correspondence should include the EA number, DOI-BLM-NV-B020-2025-0009-EA, so your comment is tied to the correct record.

BLM did not publish an actual end date on the home page of the project. Getting your comments in quickly would be a good idea.

BLM does list a contact for questions: Melissa Jennings at mjennings@blm.gov. If the online portal fails, commenters should at minimum document the problem and ask for instructions using the EA number in the subject line and body of the email.

Click HERE to find sample comments and a fast sign-on letter option.

Why this matters

The EA presents both a gather plan and what BLM describes as an HMAP, even though the document also acknowledges that Stone Cabin already has a 1983 HMAP and that Saulsbury historically never had a formally developed HMAP.

That matters because BLM is not simply creating a new plan for Saulsbury to comply with the existing court order. It also appears to be attempting to “update” the 1983 Stone Cabin plan without specifically identifying what parts of the 1983 HMAP are being updated, whether the original plan’s required studies were ever completed, or how the new document actually tiers to or replaces the earlier approved plan…. while the issue is in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ninth Circuit appeal

Wild Horse Education’s case is now pending in the Ninth Circuit as Case No. 25-5679. The opening brief argues that BLM cannot ignore approved HMAP objectives when making major management decisions.

It is therefore inappropriate for BLM to push forward with a new long-term plan that seems designed to get around a ruling that could set real guard rails on what the agency must evaluate, including subunits, monitoring duties, and other plan-specific obligations. BLM also fails to even note the court order to create an HMAP at Saulsbury and fails to note the Ninth Circuit Appeal regarding the HMAP at Stone Cabin. That is actually a procedural error, one of many, in the EA out for comment now.

What BLM leaves unclear

The 2026 EA says the agency has not issued an updated HMAP for Stone Cabin since 1983, and it states that the Authorized Officer will not set or adjust AML because that was established through earlier decisions and current monitoring does not support adjustment at this time (without actually providing any data that would comply with the 1983 HMAP) At the same time, the EA’s own background section shows that the Stone Cabin, Saulsbury, and Little Fish Lake AMLs are rooted in older consent decisions and a 1996 FMUD, not a newly disclosed, transparent AML methodology in this EA (AML was never set using data, just an agreement).

The Ninth Circuit opening brief explains why this is such a serious issue.

It states that the 1983 Stone Cabin HMAP required management by five sub-units and called for specific monitoring and studies, including horse population data, sex ratios, age structure, recruitment, seasonal movement and distribution, specific foaling data, forage utilization, soil information, and cooperative study work with the Forest Service near the Monitor territory. The brief further argues that BLM did not conduct population inventories for each sub-unit and did not carry out the HMAP’s required data collection on movement, distribution, and other herd-specific factors before adopting the gather plan now on appeal.

In other words, BLM appears to be trying to satisfy the court’s directive to produce an HMAP for Saulsbury while also treating the 1983 Stone Cabin HMAP as something it can quietly fold into a new document without ever squarely accounting for what that plan required or whether those obligations were met (something in front of the Ninth Circuit Court right now).

Your voice matters

Wild Horse Education is preparing extensive comments while working hard on the case in front of the Ninth Circuit, but public comments still matter for this historically significant herd.

Stone Cabin and Saulsbury are tied to the very first official BLM roundup, the first court case, the birth of what is today’s adoption program, a pre thoroughbred won in a poker game by a famous gunfighter and, of course, to pioneer advocate Velma Johnston (aka Wild Horse Annie).

You can click HERE to see a sample comment letter you can use to draft your own or simply sign on.

Individual comments submitted directly through the BLM portal must be weighed more heavily than sign-on comments. So if you have time, please visit the Project page: BLM ePlanning project page

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