As the founder of Wild Horses Lives Matter, your entire mission is built around protecting wild horses.

In December 2024, the public was told the Virginia Range fencing project was only a proposal and that the larger 23-mile plan would take years because it would have to go through the National Environmental Policy Act process with the BLM. At that same time, the Nevada Department of Agriculture insisted there were “a lot” of water resources on the Virginia Range and suggested the horses would simply move deeper into the range.

This fencing is not just about “safety.” It threatens to cut Virginia Range horses off from year-round water sources including Washoe Lake, Little Washoe Lake and Steamboat Creek forcing them to travel farther in search of wate.
Now fast forward. The BLM’s own NEPA Register shows the Virginia Range Fence Line project as a Categorical Exclusion, not the full public environmental review people were led to believe would take years.. The project is listed as DOI-BLM-NV-C020-2026-0016-CE and was updated May 1, 2026.
The Nevada Departmeny of Agriculture stated purpose is public safety: keeping horses out of housing communities and roadways. But here is the problem. If this fence cuts horses off from the water they actually use, they will not simply disappear. They will go looking for water. That can push them into more dangerous corridors, longer travel routes, and potentially across bigger, busier roads. A project being sold as “safety” may create a new safety crisis for the same horses it claims to protect.
The concern gets even more serious when you look at what was said at the Washoe County Board of County Commissioners meeting on August 26, 2025. During the Virginia Range feral and estray horse discussion, NDA explained that the BLM had declared the Virginia Range “horse-free,” that these horses do not have protection under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, and that if BLM were to issue a trespass order for estray or feral livestock that “do not belong there,” those animals could be gathered.
That means the fence does not just move horses away from people. It could move horses into a legal trap.
If the fencing blocks historic water access and pushes Virginia Range horses farther onto BLM-managed land, the same horses can then be labeled trespass livestock and removed. That is why so many of us see this project as a back-door removal plan disguised as a public-safety project.