Government’s Wild Horse Management Plan Struck Down on Appeal

The Bureau of Land Management violated federal law when it failed to consider whether changes to wild horse management plans achieved its statutory goal to maintain a thriving ecological balance, a federal appeals court said.

The government admitted it “made no finding of thriving natural ecological balance,” which ignores a requirement of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit said in a Tuesday opinion sending the case back to a Wyoming district court to determine the appropriate remedy.

BLM manages wild horses on a checkerboard pattern of private and public land ownership in Wyoming, with consent from the private landowners. The Rock Springs Grazing Association owns most of the private areas and revoked its consent in 2010 after the agency failed to remove excess horses. The association requested BLM remove all horses from private lands.

In 2022, the agency proposed amendments to management plans that removed some designated horse management areas. BLM published two environmental impact statements and a report, explaining it couldn’t maintain herds in those blocks without “constant straying” into private land.

Groups, including Friends of Animals and the Animal Welfare Institute, challenged the proposals. They argued the proposals violate the Wild Horse Act and other laws by “functionally eliminating wild horse herds on public lands” without considering statutory goals.

The government argued it’s only required to consider a thriving natural ecological balance once it designates an area for horse management under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. The proposals aren’t management decisions, but a precursor question, so the Wild Horse Act doesn’t apply.

The US District Court for the District of Wyoming said the groups’ suit was unripe, and that they conflated the proposals with a final decision. The court also found that BLM didn’t act arbitrarily.

But the Wild Horse Act requires the agency to manage horse herds in a way that is meant to achieve and maintain a “thriving natural ecological balance” on public lands, which the agency didn’t do here, Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich wrote.

Although wild horses shouldn’t be managed “at the expense of all other public land uses,” this doesn’t mean BLM can use the management plan process to “avoid its obligations under the Wild Horse Act,” Tymkovich said. The agency’s decisions regarding which areas of public lands should be managed also “is a management decision,” the Tenth Circuit said.

But the groups failed to show the agency predetermined its decision before completing the environmental analysis required under the National Environmental Policy Act, Tymkovich said. The agency “took the requisite good faith ‘hard look,’” and the groups’ concerns over environmental impacts of increased grazing “are beyond the scope” of the amendments and the court’s NEPA review, the Tenth Circuit said.

The environmental impact statements also confirm the agency considered alternatives and their impact on resources, Tymkovich said.

Judges Harris L. Hartz and Allison H. Eid joined the opinion.

Eubanks & Associates PLLC, Friends of Animals, and Riley Safer Holmes & Cancila LLP represent the groups. Fairfield & Woods PC represents the Grazing Association.

The case is Am. Wild Horse Campaign v. Raby, 10th Cir., No. 24-08055, 7/15/25.