The status of about 3,000 Wyoming mustangs has turned into a continual legal back-and-forth. Horse advocates, opposed to rounding them up, have the upper hand, at least for now.
Mustangs in three herd management areas (HMAs) have become the crux of a protracted legal battle between the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and wild horse advocates.
Those include horses in the Great Divide Basin and Salt Wells Creek HMAs, as well as part of the Adobe Town HMA.
The BLM wants to “zero out” those herds or remove all the horses from the range.
The Salt Wells Creek Herd includes rare curly-haired mustangs.
“All removed horses will be transported to BLM holding facilities. Upon arrival at the facility, they will be prepared for the agency’s wild horse Adoption & Sales programs. Wild horses that do not meet adoption age or temperament criteria may be shipped to public off-range pastures,” according to the BLM.
Shifting Start Dates
The BLM in May announced its decision to begin the roundups.
The roundups were originally set to start in July and August. Horse advocates prevailed in a lawsuit in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver to halt the roundups.
That reversed an earlier decision, greenlighting the roundups, by Kelly Rankin, the chief judge of the US District Court for the District of Wyoming.
That case was won on the precedent that the BLM’s Resource Management Plan that included the roundups was in violation of the federal 1971 Wild Horse And Burro Act.
The 10th Circuit Court also kicked the matter back down to Rankin, to remedy the RMP to comply with the Wild Horse act
Then word came from BLM that the roundups had rescheduled for Oct. 13, Bill Eubanks, the horse advocate’s attorney, told Cowboy State Daily.
So, a petition was filed in Rankin’s court on Wednesday to once again halt the roundup, he said.
“By late yesterday, we learned from justice department that the attorneys representing BLM have delayed it until this summer (summer 2026),” Eubanks said Thursday.
The BLM’s initial May decision to begin the roundups “is still technically on the books,” he said.
The petition in Rankin’s court calls for the decision to be set aside, he said.
The BLM declined to comment on the matter.
”The Bureau of Land Management cannot comment on matters that are currently under litigation,” Jacqueline Alderman, the agency’s High Desert District spokeswoman, stated in an email Thursday to Cowboy State Daily.
Avid mustang photographer Carol Walker, who is one of the parties Eubanks is representing, told Cowboy State Daily that she was “greatly relieved” that the roundups had been delayed yet again.
The BLM’s Perspective
Eubanks said that the horse advocates’ case hinges upon the Wild Horse Act. The act states that the BLM is obligated to manage mustangs in areas where there is adequate rangeland for the horses. And the HMAs meet that standard.
“The BLM has been doing it (managing wild horse herds) since 1971. They’ve never removed statutory protection for entire herds” as is being proposed in Wyoming, he said.
However, the BLM has argued that the areas in question aren’t suitable habitat for the mustangs. That’s because of conflicts with private landowners, BLM Rock Springs Field Manager Kimberlee Foster previously told Cowboy State Daily.
The range that the herds occupy is in an area of “checkerboard” parcels of public and private land, Foster said.
As the BLM drew up plans to manage horses there during the 1970s and early 1980s, the agency entered into agreements with landowners – including the landowners’ consent to allow a few mustangs to occasionally stray onto their property.
“When HMAs (Herd Management Areas) were created in that area after the Wild Horse Act, they were created only with landowners’ consent,” Foster said.
However, from the landowners’ perspective, there were too many mustangs coming onto their property.
Landowners for years sued the BLM over the mustangs, Foster said.
In 2010, the landowners legally withdrew their consent to allow mustangs on their property.
From the BLM’s perspective, the area is no longer suitable for managing mustang herds.
Wild Or Feral?
Eubanks’ clients and other horse advocates argue that the mustangs qualify as wildlife and should be managed and protected as such.
However, not everyone takes that view. Some consider them to be a feral species that competes with native species, such as mule deer and antelope.
During a lengthy discussion before the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission Wednesday regarding a vital antelope migration route called the Path of the Pronghorn, several speakers stated that “feral horses” were at threat to the antelope.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
