wild horse roundup

The investment was welcomed by groups that advocate for the protection of wild horses and have been pushing the government to abandon helicopter roundups.

Federal land officials are considering whether to remove almost 2,000 wild horses from Wyoming’s Red Desert. They say the population has exceeded appropriate levels for the habitat, potentially leading to environmental harm.

The Bureau of Land Management is punting its roundup of most wild horses in southwest Wyoming. This comes after a summer of back and forth.

The BLM initially planned to round up about 3,000 horses starting in mid-July. According to a wild horse advocacy group, it’s delayed until October at the earliest. Meanwhile, a final court decision hangs in limbo.

The fate of thousands of wild horses in the Rock Springs area is still unknown after 15 years of court battles. A judge just pushed the final decision back to a lower court.

More than half of Wyoming’s wild horses will be removed to appease private property owners on the checkerboard landscape. Herds will cease to exist in the Great Divide Basin and Salt Wells Creek areas, and portions of Adobe Town.

Sections of southwest Wyoming’s iconic sprawling sagebrush landscape could soon look different: No wild horses. That’s because the Bureau of Land Management is planning to remove all of the wild horses roaming a 2.1 million acre area near Rock Springs.

A federal judge in the Mountain West recently ruled in favor of wild horse advocates who sued federal land managers for failing to stick to their own rules.

Funding from Governor Mark Gordon, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), and other federal sources helped round up more than 6,500 horses on the Wind River Reservation this year. The efforts have been met with some concerns and questions. The removals were a collaboration between the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, the BIA, the state of Wyoming, and various wildlife management agencies.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced a proposed update to the Pryor Horse Herd Management Plan (HMP) last month. The herd roams 30,000 to 40,000 acres of land between the southeastern portion of Carbon County, Montana, and southern Big Horn County, Wyoming.