Red Desert, 2020
Two roundups begin this week. Our teams will be at both.
Two Bureau of Land Management helicopter-drive trap roundup operations are beginning this week: one in Wyoming’s Red Desert and the other in Nevada’s North Complex. Our teams will be on the ground at both operations, and we need your support to keep them there.
Red Desert, Wyoming
Red Desert, Wyoming: Legal action over public access
The Red Desert roundup is scheduled to begin October 15, targeting 1,035 wild horses for capture. If that target is met, about 100 horses will be returned to the range with population-growth suppression applied.
BLM’s spring 2026 population statistics listed an estimated 1,679 horses across the five Red Desert HMAs. Its current gather schedule lists an estimated 2,015 horses at the start of the fall operation, without providing an updated population breakdown by HMA.
The Red Desert Complex includes Antelope Hills HMA (approximately 159,000 acres; AML 60–82 horses), Crooks Mountain HMA (approximately 58,000 acres; AML 65–85), Green Mountain HMA (approximately 117,000 acres; AML 170–300), Lost Creek HMA (approximately 251,000 acres; AML 60–82), and Stewart Creek HMA (approximately 168,000 acres; AML 125–175), with the adjoining Arapaho Creek Herd Area encompassing an additional 185,718 acres and “not managed” to maintain a wild horse population (but yet a BLM recognized route that horses move from HMA to HMA allowing BLM to set low AML in each without claiming that these numbers are not at risk genetically due to movement, in and through Arapaho). You can learn more HERE.
From BLM about the operation: “The BLM plans to gather approximately 1,035 horses from the Stewart Creek and Green Mountain herd management areas during this fall’s operations, as part of approximately 1,800 horses planned to be gathered across the Red Desert Complex…”
There are severe issues with the removal plan at Red Desert. Nearly identical issues are already in federal court moving toward adjudication. This plan will not end with the roundup. Neither will the ability to challenge it before it reaches the conclusion (that includes zeroing out Arapaho Creek). Not only are appeals on the plan active, our team had to take additional action specific to the roundup.
Our legal team had to act this week after BLM initially offered public observation on only four days out of a scheduled 37-day operation. Our attorneys sent legal notice challenging those restrictions. BLM is now expanding access and has officially stated they expect the operation to last approximately three weeks of the 5 weeks approved.
Public access matters. The ability to witness and document what happens to wild horses during capture is essential to accountability, not something that should depend on a handful of agency-selected observation days.
Access it crucial to continue our work on welfare issues. Primarily the creation of enforceable welfare rules that follow lawful processes for establishing the rules (including public comment) and consequences for violations of provisions that go beyond “reputation.”
The lack of an enforceable welfare policy has always represented a critical void in BLM management. “Humane” is one of the main tenants of the law. The story of that tragically necessary fight is a long one. But the need for that policy is even more urgent as an influx of $30. million is set to flood in from USDA to BLM. “Get to AML and keep populations absurdly low by any means necessary” is set to happen with zero guardrails.
Please learn more HERE. You can also simply take our fast action item HERE.
Our early work helped bring the reality of roundups to the public daily. Back then we were the only ones onsite daily. Flanigan, 2012
North Complex, Nevada: Roundup in an area affected by summer fires
The second operation will take place in the North Complex in Washoe County, Nevada, in the country north of Reno.
The North Complex comprises Flanigan HMA (17,147 acres; AML 80–124 horses), Dogskin Mountains HMA (6,523 acres; AML 10–15), and Granite Peak HMA (4,001 acres; AML 11–18), for a combined 27,671 HMA acres and an AML of 101–157 horses. BLM’s approved gather plan covers a broader footprint of approximately 314,145 acres, including surrounding land outside the HMAs.
These are the same herd areas affected by this summer’s fires north of Reno. In August, our team reported that fire had moved farther into the HMAs as winds shifted north. One of our volunteers had to leave roundup coverage to evacuate from the Bug/Freds Mountain fire, helped others move their horses to safety, and then faced a second evacuation because of the Stallion fire.
These are her “hometown” wild horses.
Dogskins
BLM’s tentative schedule lists the North Complex roundup for October 16–31, 2026, targeting 323 wild horses for capture and permanent removal from Flanigan, Dogskin Mountains, and Granite Peak HMAs. The agency lists a spring population estimate of 369 horses and an estimated start-of-gather population of 443. If that starting estimate is accurate and the removal target is met, approximately 120 horses would remain; BLM is claiming “mid-AML.”
However, BLM’s schedule does not specify how the remaining horses would be distributed among the three HMAs or surrounding lands, nor does it provide separate population estimates or removal targets for each HMA.
Unlike Wyoming where they say they did an infrared census, BLM is estimating the population here. There is no pre-roundup census to note.
BLM’s projected post-roundup population of 120 wild horses in the North Complex depends on its estimated starting population of 443 being accurate.
The agency plans to capture and permanently remove 323 horses. If the actual starting population were just 20% lower than estimated, meeting that removal target would leave approximately 31 horses; far below the complex’s combined minimum AML of 101. This is an illustration of the risk, not a prediction of the outcome.
The concern is not hypothetical: earlier this year at Idaho’s Saylor Creek HMA, a pre-gather census prompted BLM to reduce its capture target from 150 to 118, approximately 21%, according to WHE’s reporting. That reduction does not establish an identical percentage error in the population estimate, but it demonstrates why removal targets must be adjusted when better information becomes available.
In North Complex, fencing adds another concern. Wherever livestock or “sage-grouse fencing” prevents horses from moving between areas, a complex-wide total can conceal small, isolated breeding groups. BLM’s own management handbook recognizes that fences can restrict access to water, seasonal habitat, and genetic interchange. Leaving horses somewhere within the complex is not the same as ensuring that each remaining group has access to essential resources and other breeding animals.
BLM’s tentative schedule does not provide updated population estimates or separate removal targets for Flanigan, Dogskin Mountains, and Granite Peak HMAs.
Before treating 120 remaining horses as an assured outcome, the agency needs to explain how it will verify the population, adjust removals if estimates prove too high, and account for the distribution and connectivity of the horses left behind.
A lack of transparency has always been a problem.
This concern runs from the lack of meaningful observation at roundups, to off-limits to the public holding facilities.
It also concerns information.
When BLM creates critical planning documents for wild horses and burros the public is never given the actual data used or census maps. We see only a document that interprets the data. One of the reasons we have “comment periods” is for the public to give input to flawed analysis processes. That means you have to see the data, a description of the methodology and the conclusion. Much like a second grade teacher needs to “see the work” when a student is doing a math problem is to identify where there are issues in the calculations; a number on a page could be right and the method is wrong or the entire answer could go tragically sideways in calculations and be entirely wrong.
When BLM sets a target for a roundup we see “estimated population.” There are error rates: both up and down. BLM goes with the “up” and never includes the “down.” As ranges get “at or near AML” this distinction is critical. Over the last few years we ave seen BLM have to change target numbers (or not meet target numbers) more frequently because they consistently overestimate the number of horses on the range.
In places like the North Complex: If BLM’s starting population estimate is 20% higher than the number actually on the ground (in the sense that there are 20% fewer horses than the agency estimates) removing 323 horses would leave approximately 31, not 120. That would put the remaining population roughly 70 horses below the complex’s combined minimum AML of 101.
We are urging BLM to provide a pre-roundup census or a post operation census (at the very least) to determine if wild horses need to be released back into the HMAs as BLM overstepped legal authority and removed to below AML.
Our team is working hard.
We will update you as time allows.
We need your support to keep our teams engaging lawmakers, our team fighting in the court, our team running in the field covering the roundup schedule.