Callaghan Complex HMAP & Roundup Plan
It's Not Too Late to Protect Thousands of Wild Horses In Nevada
Deadline for Public Comments: September 3, 2025
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is requesting public comments on a Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP) for the long-term management of wild horses in the Bald Mountain, Callaghan, Hickison (North), and North and South Shoshone HMAs — collectively known as the Callaghan Complex in central Nevada.
The BLM plans to remove 94% of the wild horse population (including all wild burros), which they project will total 5,160 animals at the time of the roundup. This would leave just 323 horses — the low end of the so-called “Arbitrary” Management Level (AML) — eliminating more than 4,837 wild horses and burros from the range.
This disastrous plan includes permanently sterilizing 25% of the remaining mares with an experimental glue or laser procedure to seal the oviducts and prevent egg fertilization — a method that, based on available data, has been attempted on only a handful of animals.
Bad on top of bad on top of bad: the BLM also plans to use the sterilizing GonaCon vaccine, implant experimental IUDs without medical aftercare, and skew the sex ratio (which naturally favors females) to 60% males, creating dangerous conditions as stallions fight over limited mares across over 900 square miles of land.
This plan would destroy everything that makes wild horses so very special: their natural behaviors, their family structure, stallion behaviors that protect their families, lead mare behaviors that shape how families are organized...
No surprise — the BLM permits the annual equivalent of 6,466 year-round cows in the Callaghan Complex — 11 to 20 times more than the meager AML of just 323 to 552 wild horses for the entire area. Over the past 10 years, actual livestock use in the Complex has averaged the equivalent of 2,212 year-round cows — more than four times the high AML for wild horses.
Please take a moment to sign the petition below, calling for a re-evaluation of the AML to give wild horses their fair share. We also urge the rejection of experimental fertility control methods that threaten the well-being, natural behaviors, and social structure of wild horses — including:
GonaCon, which disrupts natural hormone production and damages reproductive organs necessary for wild behaviors
Experimental IUDs and oviduct sealing
Skewing the natural sex ratio to have more stallions than mares, which fuels dangerous male aggression
NOW is not the time to be silent. Wild horses and burros are depending on YOU to speak up!
Please share this with your family, friends, and on social media. We must show that Americans will not give up — and will continue to fight for the fair, humane treatment that our wild horses and burros deserve!