Mare and foal, Virginia Range

July 20, 2026, the BLM Carson City District is set to begin a wild horse roundup “in and around” the Lahontan Herd Management Area (HMA) about 35 miles east of Carson City, Nevada.

Lahontan consists of 6,937 acres of BLM land and 2,641 acres of a mix of private and other public lands for a total of 9,578 acres. The area of the roundup is 239,431 acres. Even though this are was designated for use by wild horses after the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act was passed, BLM set the Appropriate Management Level (AML) at 7-10 wild horses. This number allowed for stragglers from the Virginia Range (managed by the state) as BLM felt they could not effectively “zero out” the area. BLM decided to manage this area principally for livestock.

BLM plans to take 700 wild horses from the area roughly outlined in the map below.

Rough outline of the area of the roundup

Many of you are sending us questions:

Yes, both the Horse Mountain HMA and the Virginia Range (State Managed) will be impacted. A lot of you are emailing frantically as horses you know that are part of the highly publicized darting/management program at the Virginia Range could be impacted. 

The short answer: Most will not be near the capture zone. But there are bands from the Virginia Range that regularly stray onto BLM lands. Wildlife and wild horses really do not care where humans draw our arbitrary lines.

While these horses might look identical to the untrained eye, the horses of the Virginia Range and those in the Lahontan gather area are governed by two completely different legal systems. The Virginia Range horses occupy the hills right outside of Reno, Sparks, and Carson City. They are legally classified as “feral livestock” and fall under the jurisdiction of the Nevada Department of Agriculture. On the other hand, the horses within the Lahontan Herd Management Area—located roughly 40 miles east near the Lahontan Reservoir—are federally protected wild mustangs managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Golden hour, Virginia Range

Despite these distinct legal labels, the physical reality on the ground is much more fluid. The high desert of Nevada lacks physical fences separating these state and federal territories. The BLM’s designated “gather area” for the Lahontan herd encompasses hundreds of thousands of unfenced acres, including land near the B-16 bombing range south of Fallon. Because horses naturally roam in search of food and water, Virginia Range horses frequently migrate directly into the area of what will be an active federal roundup zone in a week.

Yes, wild horses from both the federal Lahontan herd and the state-managed Virginia Range can end up captured in the same helicopter drive.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has not altered its roundup protocols to prevent capturing horses from the Virginia Range darting program.

Legally speaking, the federal government does not recognize the Virginia Range herd as wild mustangs, categorizing them instead as state-owned “estray livestock” trespassing on federal land. This would make them subject to immediate removal.

It is going to get very complicated as local advocates try to track wild horses coming in from the roundup. The horses will be sent to Palomino Valley Center north of Reno. Unlike the majority of BLM holding corrals, this facility is open to the public.

Virginia Range near Reno, NV

We will update you as we have more information.

Our team is working on the underlying lawsuit for long term change for the Carter, Buckhorn and Coppersmith HMAs after shutting down the roundup with a Preliminary Injunction last week. We are also working on the final briefing in the Devil’s Garden lawsuit, the brief for Stone Cabin currently in the Ninth Circuit, Pancake, etc.

We also have observers in the field at roundups.

We will try to answer the other questions in our inbox as soon as time allows. WHE is a small organization of dedicated volunteers and no paid “staff.”

Thank you for making everything we do possible.

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.