On August 5th the below data was added to the BLM site page for the North Lander Complex wild horse roundup & removal.... it shows the count of wild horses the BLM Lander office Wild Horse specialist found over two days of aerial flights across the complex, completed near the end of the July 2024 roundup and removal of the North Lander wild horses, and published a few weeks after the roundup was completed.

Included in that data are the number of horses that were reportedly going to be returned to the complex after mares had been treated with fertility control.

On October 23rd the below email went out to all of us that had been signed up as observers during roundup operations:

At first glance it was a huge sigh of relief that - finally - there was a date to return some of the wild horses to their wild lands.... I reread it to make sure of the when and where, and then as I reread it a 3rd time looking at the number of horses that were to be returned to Dishpan Butte and Rock Creek HMAs, something did not seem exactly right.

I immediately looked up the BLM site for the NLC roundup report, and sure enough, the numbers did not match.... there were now 10 less horses being returned to the Rock Creek HMA.

I quickly emailed the Public Affairs person, Sarah - who btw is amazing and has always been so helpful - asking about the difference in what was on the website vs the email, hoping it was simply a typing error, but instead this was the response received:

Apparently it just does not matter what is in a published report, it does not matter what was in a written and published EA (that is a discussion for another day but seems to have become the new accepted standard in WY), there is no care for protocol or transparency of information.

I have a complete loss of faith and trust that the correct thing - at any level - is being done for these horses that live and die at the mercy of men and their capricious will.

10 horses.... I already know the haters are going to scoff and make fun of me for raising a stink over 10 horses, the BLM wild horse guy is likely rolling his eyes and shrugging off my thoughts, because in their eyes 10 is a small number not worth fighting over.

But to me, every single horse counts, in the same way that I think every single horse that dies in a roundup and removal matters, every single horse that is not returned matters!! Every - Single - Horse - Matters!!!

They are living beings, they are more than a number on an inventory sheet or a percentage of a statistical study in someone's report....

It is inappropriate and incorrect for the Wild Horse specialist to decide there are more horses in an area after the fact of an aerial count - it does not account for the changes that happen to a herd following a roundup and removal!

I have had the unfortunate experience of observing herds both immediately and long-term following roundup and removal operations - and the one thing that is true each time, is that the horses that are left in the wild spaces begin to move in much larger than normal patterns... and continue to change their habits for a year or more.

Those wild horses that are still there on the range suddenly have a lot of open and unoccupied places that they may have avoided previously for various reasons that may include the desire to avoid conflict with other stallions, that they did not wish to compete for grass or water, or they just preferred to be more solitary.

Often bands are separated during removal operations, stallions, mares, and foals may break apart miles before the trap, or stallions refuse to go into the trap once confronted with it, and other horses that knew each other and just happened to not get caught by the helicopter and brought in but had friends on the other side of the hill that did get trapped and removed.

And horses moved around during the removal as the helicopter displaced them and those that were trapped... that became extremely apparent during this particular roundup when they were not able to find the number of horses in Muskrat Basin that was expected - horses were 'missing' that was expected to be brought into the trap, but instead they brought in an airplane to spot horses for the contractor helicopter pilot that was not able to find them, and then they sent BLM staff and Rangers (law enforcement officers) driving all over the place looking for wild horses!

Every single wild horse that remained in the wild felt the disruption of that roundup and removal, they always feel it, and part of the aftermath is that they will begin to move around and across the HMA lines - wild horses know how to circumvent a fence when they want to, and it becomes easier when gates are left open, something that happens frequently (I have closed far too many of those gates when they are near the highways), and as hunting season has been ongoing for two months there are likely even more gates than normal left open.

It is absurd for someone to do their own count without any new reports provided, without any explanation of how that count was conducted, and after the fact of an aerial count that was done over a 2-day period, with a report submitted and published for the public, it leaves the public with no sense of trust that those reports, or anything published officially, mean anything - it discredits the agency and opens the door to criticisms that in this case are well deserved.

I did not raise holy hell against this roundup and removal while it was in progress (to clarify I did raise hell at the time of the EA review and publication in 2022 when change could have been effected and those who had a bigger voice were silent), in part because there was no legal standing to challenge it in 2024, but also because we were only a few short years away from a wild horse population level that would have seen horses starving to death even in the summer when grasses are growing - I know many of you think that is impossible and crazy and I must be in the BLM or rancher pockets to say such things.... I am sorry you feel that way, I dream of a place and time where wild horses are given their lands without encumbrance of sharing with cows, sheep or humans. But even in that dream there is management, horses do not stop breeding when the land they live on is at sustainable capacity, and this land is not without limits - it is surrounded by fences, mines, private lands, and highways - to name just a few of the things that make it impossible for wild horses to roam completely freely.

And so I did not raise hell about it or yell and pitch a fit, which cost me allies in the advocacy circles, but I did what I did because it was the only legal thing that could be done and it was the correct thing to do in that moment.

Just as I am now burning other bridges to again do what is the correct thing in calling out the failure to return all 18 horses to Rock Creek HMA, it pains me to be the obnoxious voice in a sea of silence, but I also cannot sit quietly when I am told that the report published of the post removal census means nothing, that the Wild Horse specialist can randomly change his mind and return fewer horses to the HMAs than the public had been told via a publicly posted report.

And I am concerned that Rock Creek will not be the only HMA that will see fewer horses returned than was published - I have already responded to the 2nd email asking if there are plans to short the number of wild horses to be returned to Conant Creek and Muskrat Basin HMAs... I will let you know the response.

Summing up emails shared below... I questioned the ability to have a better count from the ground than the air and that it was not a straightforward count but assumed it was a typical statistical double-count that is the standard BLM practice when not using an infrared aerial count.

And if the Wild Horse Specialist believes there are additional horses than already counted in Conant Creek and Muskrat Basin, between now and the future unknown return date, will he return fewer of them back to their HMA than is in the report.

At this point I felt it was more efficient to include the Wild Horse Specialist himself in the email chain.... I ask if a 2nd flight was conducted because, maybe there was? If you have dealt with the BLM on much of any level you know that you have to ask, ask again, and ask a third time - all with different language or wording, and then sometimes are still forced to submit a FOIA request to get answers.

This was the response received from the Wild Horse Specialist:

My response back that same afternoon:

And below is the final response from the Wild Horse Specialist on Friday - at this point it is made very clear that my voice and opinion are unwanted:

I am not surprised and I really did not expect anything to change... anyone who has dealt with roundups, removals, or anything in the politics of wild horses knows that rarely is there change that results in a win for the horses.

I absolutely believe that Clay Stott cares for the horses, he and I have had to communicate many times over the years regarding horses in the wild as I spend most of my time in the wild horse areas he is responsible for, and he has always been very responsive and fair in how he assesses injuries I have reported. I trust him to generally do what is right for the horses... I felt he was responsive to advocates and of what needed to be done during the roundup and went above and beyond what I have witnessed in roundups in Wyoming over the last few years - I hate roundups and removals with every single fiber of my being - but when there is no stopping one, the least we can do is make sure to take all steps possible to help ease as much stress as possible for the horses, and I felt that for the most part Clay did that for the North Lander Complex wild horses.

Refusing to return 10 horses to Rock Creek is absurdly weird.... it leaves us (the public) once again with a negative impression of BLM transparency as there was never any discussion or disclosure of this new plan, it just was done in an email that was still left up to the reader to realize on their own a change had been made, and as you can see in the final email I am dismissed as an over-emotional uneducated member of the public.

It is absurd and ridiculous that after the removal of 2,577 wild horses in 20 days, BLM cannot be bothered to return even the minimal number of horses that were stated to be returned in the North Lander Complex roundup and removal report page.....

To use the excuse of needing to be at low AML is not acceptable and is exactly what it sounds like - a ridiculously lame excuse. AML is an arbitrary number that allows a range from low to high and it is a number that is not scientifically viable, as has been proven over and again with actual scientific research studies.

And as the mares that are lucky enough to be returned have been treated with the fertility control Gonacon, it is expected they will not have foals anywhere from 1-4yrs, with the assumption (and hope) that they are not permanently sterilized, as Gonacon is still considered to be new and unproven by most science research, with reports of mares either completely failing to respond and continuing to foal yearly, or on the other end of the spectrum becoming permanently sterilized at their first treatment.

If there was real and actual concern and desire to manage this complex for the health of the land and the horses, and to not have to do another helicopter roundup for a long while (my preference would be never again), then the EA should have included a long-term darting program to allow for slow growth of the herd in the same way that the McCullough Peaks herd was managed for several years, prior to change in management in the Cody field office.

And finally, I am just so stinking over BLM staff in Wyoming tossing out written and published reports, EAs, and doing whatever and however they please when they please, regardless of written policy, process, protocol - or just plain moral decency.

So there is no change, and there is still the threat that fewer horses will be allowed to return to Conant Creek and Muskrat Basin HMAs if the Wild Horse Specialist decides he has found more horses... maybe we can ask all of the horses still in the wild to freeze up and not move so as to avoid more confusion! Just kidding!

Really, if you have ever spent real time with wild horses you know, they do what they want - when they want - and how they want to, and that includes roaming about their wild lands... that is a story I need to write, after my 13yrs of personal time in observation and documentation of wild horses it still boggles my mind how very much they move around in the wild places!

But I had to try... I had to ask.

I tried because that is what is required of me by the wild horses that have allowed me into their lives, I tried because of a promise I made to a wild stallion years ago, I tried because it is absurd that a publicly published report is dismissed and the only reason the public now knows about this is an email that went out to the NLC roundup operations observers.