This family with a young foal was grazing in the area of the trap and was the first captured.

The Jackson Mountains roundup began on September 20th. Our team member has been onsite every day and you can see some of the dailies here. 

The operation began in the north and nearly cleared out that herd before moving south where the operation squeezed out wild horses at the same trap location for 5 days straight.

So far 469 (196 Stallions, 181 Mares, and 92 Foals) have been captured of the 500 horse goal.

7 have died onsite. BLM said “20+ y/o, buckskin stallion, chronic, blindness. 20+ y/o, bay, mare, chronic, deformity, knee. 13 y/o, bay mare, chronic, defect, previously fractured fetlock. 20+ y/o, bay, stud BLM said was a “body score 1.” 20+ y/o, sorrel, stud, chronic, BCS 1, unable to maintain or improve 20+ y/o, sorrel, stud, chronic, BCS 1, unable to maintain or improve, 12 y/o, bay, mare, chronic, blindness (None of these horses were observed by the public)

It needs to be noted that these horses are being captured, sorted and shipped to a facility in the same day. The majority of deaths during an average operation occur overnight or the day after capture. We will not know the real impact until Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are answered.

The target goal for this operation is 500.

We expect this operation to end today unless weather moving in shuts down operations.

We have been onsite every day. More than half of those days we were the only observers. Our team remains onsite.

The true target goal for the “plan” is to get to “low AML” of 130 and sterilize a third of the horses and apply sex-skewing and vaccines to the rest of the horses. 

This roundup is happening under the 2021 “gather EA.”

That plan determined around 600 excess wild horses. 526 were removed after the EA was formalized. Now, in 2026, they are saying that goal was not reached and are doing another roundup after approving a “management plan” to comply with the 2021 gather plan.

Together the number removed under the “excess” determined by the 2021 plan will be nearly double what was found. BLM approved an HMAP in 2026 that incorporated the 2021 plan (it is supposed to be the other way around). Because BLM says they were about 75 wild horses shy of reaching low AML (the original excess determination) they could remove up to the same number analyzed in the 2021 decision (600) without doing a new plan. They say as long as they (say) that this operation does not reach “AML,” they can use this  (2021)”gather plan” again.

Now that may sound like word soup… because it is. It is a tangled and unethical way of creating their “legal authority” to carry out objectives. It is probably illegal.

The idea that a “gather EA” sets a current excess determination is a subject in current litigation. If a “determination of excess” is created through a gather plan (the way it is done) then can a plan authorize the removal of more than that number or continue after they reach AML (the number they allow)?

The courts have already says once AML is reached a new “gather plan” must be done to determine “excess.” (The word “excess” creates the legal authority to do a roundup. The courts are now being asked to determine “what exceeds the scope” of the original plan beyond “reaching AML.”

The case at Jackson also includes “fertility control” that fails to actually analyze impacts. At Jackson sterilization (through techniques that are still experimental, and proving not very successful, like “burning and gluing oviducts”) is included for 30% of a herd at 130 wild horses. 130 is already below the minimum for genetic viability. They also plan to do numerous other techniques that include sex-skewing and “treating” the non sterile portion of the herd.

The legal challenge is moving forward at Jackson. BLM stated that none of the fertility control would be applied to this gather… but that does not stop the plan to “get it done.” The challenge continues.

This family was captured, sorted, shipped yesterday. They will never be together again as a family and never be free. Now they are just numbers in an off-limits to the public facility waiting to be shipped out to a “sale event” where they will be vulnerable to the slaughter pipeline.

Mining is expanding in Jackson, fast. Livestock is threatened from impacts to the range from water table drawn down to climate change and expanding drought. 

In May the USDA did an Memorandum of Understanding with the BLM that not one single “AUM” (the antiquated forage measure for what a cow/calf pair eats in a month or one horse) would be lost and closed grazing allotments (due to drought or other preservation factor) would be opened. In that same document it says (essentially) that wild horses and burros need to “get to AML and stay there” so no cattle AUM is impacted. But that MOU had no funding, just words. 

Now… the MOU has funding. USDA has committed $30. million to aggressively increase “fertility control” (on BLM lands) after getting to AML. 

All of this is being done predicated on “getting to low AML.” There are no guardrails on what kind of fertility control. There are no enforceable welfare standards. 

Please learn more and take action. 

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. 

Limited Edition Shirt to help support our work. 

Click image or click here to order a two-sided shirt and support our work.

Help Defend Against The Broken Promise

Fifty-five years after Congress declared wild free-roaming horses and burros “fast disappearing from the American scene,” federal agencies are still driving their numbers down on the public lands meant to protect them.

Relentless removals are aimed at herd targets roughly one-third below the numbers found when Congress acted in 1971.

And the failures do not end there. After more than five decades, wild horses and burros still lack enforceable federal welfare standards that protect them through capture, confinement, transport, and disposition. Agencies continue to remove them without ensuring they are safeguarded from the slaughter pipeline.

This 55th-anniversary shirt honors the work of Velma Bronn Johnston—Wild Horse Annie—and refuses to let the cause she ignited be erased. We are carrying the fight forward for freedom, mercy, justice, and the right of wild horses and burros to remain wild and free on their public lands.

All proceeds fuel that fight.