Our legal team has confirmed that the planned removals of wild horses from the Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith Herd Management Areas are off the roundup schedule in compliance with the federal court’s order.

We know people are seeing these herds still listed on the current gather schedule, with a September 1 start date, and are understandably concerned. The schedule has not yet been updated—but it is no longer accurate for Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, or Coppersmith and will be corrected.

The court’s July 8 preliminary injunction prohibits implementation of the 2025 Gather Plan to remove horses from these three California herd management areas while the case proceeds. The planned September operation had called for removal of 470 horses from Carter Reservoir, 273 from Buckhorn, and 113 from Coppersmith.

Our attorneys have confirmed that the agency is complying with that order. The Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith roundup will not take place as currently listed.

This is an important and hard-earned protection for these herds. The court found that the agency likely acted arbitrarily by relying on an assumed growth rate while failing to account for actual herd growth data, which in many years was negative. The case remains active, and the preliminary injunction is not a final ruling on the merits. We are working now in what is called the “administrative records” phase of the case moving toward final summary judgement.

We will continue to monitor the public schedule and provide updates when the corrected version is posted. For now, supporters can be assured: the September removals listed for Carter Reservoir, Buckhorn, and Coppersmith are halted by court order.

We do not know yet how that will impact the rest of the schedule. We do not know if BLM is moving forward with the planned removals in the Surprise complex that they were doing in conjunction with Carter, Buckhorn and Coppersmith. We do not know if they replaced all of those operations with a removal somewhere else. We are watching closely and will update as we know more.

Follow Wild Horse Education and Carter Reservoir Mustangs, Inc., for more about Carter and the National issues facing wild horses. 

We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team running 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. Sincere Gratitude.