WHAT OCCURRED CANNOT BE ERASED
Published in the July 18, 2026 edition.
Over three days last week, the United States Forest Service removed 461 horses from the Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory which spans 200,000 acres along the California/Nevada border.
According to a USFS press release, “The Montgomery Pass territory is managed for a wild horse herd size of 138 to 230 animals. A 2024 census counted 694 horses in the herd … Wild horses are documented about 20 miles outside the established territory, causing sensitive resource damage and visitor impacts at Mono Lake and other properties.
Lifelong area resident Hillary Hansen asks plaintively, “What is the Mono Lake Committee (MLC) playing God with this year?”
She blames MLC support for emboldening public agencies to move forward with the roundup. “They [MLC] set this in motion,” she said. And co-opted Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a Tribal Chair Charlotte Lang along the way, she added.
Hansen does not believe Tribal support extends beyond Lang.
I was born on the shore of Mono Lake, and have spent nearly my entire life in the Mono Basin.
This landscape has shaped who I am. I have witnessed its beauty, its hardships, and the resilience of the wildlife that calls it home. But never in all my years have I witnessed anything that left me as heartbroken as what I saw during the Montgomery Pass wild horse roundup.
The images from these past three days are seared into my memory. The fear. The panic. The desperate attempts of family bands to stay together. I will never forget them.
These horses are not just “numbers” on a management report. They are living, feeling animals. Mothers. Foals. Families. Horses, ancestors of the Tribe, that have spent time immemorial together on this landscape.
No matter where you stand on wild horse management, we can all recognize that terror and suffering should never be normalized. These animals deserve more than to be driven into panic. They deserve dignity, and they deserve compassion.
The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Mono Lake Committee must answer publicly for the roles they have played and their culpability in pushing this roundup forward. What happened here reflects a profound failure of humanity and stewardship.
There is a silence that settles over a place after something irreversible has happened. The land remembers. The horses remember. And we will never forget.
Long after the dust settles, after the helicopters are gone and the headlines fade, their absence will remain.
What occurred cannot be erased.
History will judge not only the decisions that were made, but also those who supported them or remained silent.
Karma is real and coming for each one of you. How do you sleep at night? How do you look yourself in the mirror knowing you caused this atrocity?
How much more do the resources, people, animals, and earth have to endure at the hands of these agencies? We owe the wildlife that shares these public lands more compassion than this.
The Mono Basin has taught me to honor wildness, not only for its beauty, but for its spirit. To witness that spirit shattered by senseless “management” is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
The Mono Basin deserves better. These horses deserved better. We demand answers now.
Since day 1, the USFS admitted to digging a burial pit in which to dispose of the horses potentially injured in the round-up “they would be forced to euthanize.” This was never in question.
What we cannot obtain is the truth around why a stock trailer was backed down into this exact pit area, accompanied by a bucket-equipped skid steer. Clouds of dust surrounded the site as work was taking place. We have both drone footage and ground footage documenting activity at the pit during this time while they smoothed over a part of the pit.
When questioned, Senior policy director Bartshe Miller of the Mono Lake Committee claim they “were storing panels in the pit”, while Stephanie Heller of the USFS claimed that it’s un unused “mining pit”.
These agencies have prevented the public and the tribe from viewing this area. The entire area, including the multiple dirt roads leading to the site, is heavily guarded by armed federal agents.
When I attempted to ask federal BLM officers stationed at the intersection of Highway 167 and Goat Ranch Road what was taking place, I was met by aggressive threats of arrest and my license and plates were ran through their system.
During that same encounter, a longtime member of my plant staff was placed in handcuffs and detained after asking for information about the site, and they threatened to handcuff and detain me if I didn’t leave the shoulder of the highway stating I was in direct violation of the closure. *This officer has since been reported to his agency for aggressive use of force.
On a public state highway? In Lee Vining? On the north shore of Mono Lake?
If this site is being used only to temporarily hold horses awaiting transport to slaughter facilities, why is such extraordinary security and secrecy necessary? What is the public being prevented from seeing?
