07/02/2026
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Calif. Tribe Seeks To Block July 8 Wild Horse Roundup
By Crystal Owens ·
Law360 (July 1, 2026, 2:07 PM EDT) -- A California tribe is looking to block the U.S. Department of the Interior from removing more than 600 wild horses via helicopter from a protected habitat starting July 8, arguing that the federal government has been on notice for nearly four decades that aboriginal interests are implicated by the territory's management activities.
The Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute Tribe of the Benton Paiute Reservation, in a Monday complaint, says the DOI and other federal agencies never consulted with it, yet approved the horse removal last year while acknowledging in the decision record that tribal consultation was ongoing.
"The agencies proceeded anyway, disregarding federal law and the tribe's rights," the tribe told the court.
In addition to the DOI, the Benton Paiute are suing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture for violations of the National Historic Preservation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.
The 160-member tribe also argues that the federal agencies violated executive orders 13175 and 13007, signed by President Bill Clinton, which require consultation and coordination with tribal governments and direct federal land management agencies to accommodate access to and protect the physical integrity of Native American sacred sites on federal lands.
The Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory is a nearly 200,000-acre area in California and Nevada that is managed for a herd size of 138 to 230 animals, according to the USDA. A 2024 census showed 694 horses in the herd, three to four times higher than the appropriate management level established in 1988, the USDA says.
The majority of the wild horses are outside the territorial limits, some as far as 20 miles, the USDA says, and are causing sensitive resource damage and visitor impacts at Mono Lake in California and other properties.
The planned wild horse removal area includes the Benton Paiute's reservation, the tribe argues, and its members wake each morning on land the federal government has now scheduled for helicopter operations, vehicle traffic and the mass removal of horses that its people have lived alongside and co-evolved with for generations.
"This is not a dispute about a distant federal action affecting faraway tribal interests. The removal is coming to them, their land and for the wild horses, who for them as Indigenous are sacred relatives and ancestors, who carried them and their people for thousands of years," the complaint said.
The federal agencies' March 2025 decision record estimated that 624 wild horses out of a total of 694 migrated off the territory, according to the lawsuit. But that census data "is stale" and now more than two years old, the Benton Paiute contend, and the herd has experienced significant natural losses since then.
The area experienced a "winter of biblical proportions" in 2023, the suit says, and this year some of the horses were trapped in snow that resulted in more losses.
According to the suit, the federal agencies have recognized the tribe's aboriginal interest since 1988, starting with their steering committee that year that identified that cultural and historic resources or aboriginal uses of the area may be affected by management activities.
"The agencies have thus been on constructive notice for nearly four decades that aboriginal uses and cultural resources within the territory are directly implicated by management activities. That notice predates the 2025 decision by thirty-seven years," the Benton Paiute argue.
The Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory and surrounding removal areas contain springs used by the tribe for gatherings and ceremonies, they say.
The territory also includes traditional plant gathering areas where generations of tribal members collected foods, medicines and basketmaking materials; ancestral campsites and home sites; travel corridors connecting the tribe's traditional seasonal range; and bedrock mortar sites used communally for processing pine nuts, seeds and other traditional foods, the suit says.
Tribal burial sites, petroglyphs showing the Benton Paiute's relationship with the horses of the landscape and other cultural landscapes of historical, cultural and spiritual significance are within the territory, the tribe says.
"Many of these resources have never been formally documented with any federal agency — not because they do not exist, but because BLM and USFS never established a confidential consultation process through which the tribe could safely disclose sensitive site information. The absence of documentation is a product of the agencies' consultation failure, not the absence of resources," the tribe told the court.
A representative of the Interior Department and counsel for the tribe could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.
The Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute Tribe of the Benton Paiute Reservation is represented by Stephanie Sherman of Sherman Law PC.
Counsel information for the federal defendants was not available Wednesday.
The case is Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute Tribe of the Benton Paiute Reservation et al. v. U.S. Department of the Interior et al., case number 2:26-at-01104, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
