Tribe Sues Feds for Planned Mass Removal of Wild Horse Herd on Ancestral Lands
June 30, 2026 | Source: Native News Online | by Elyse Wild
A California tribe is suing the federal government to stop the removal of more than 600 wild horses from its homelands.
The Utu Utu Gwaitu Paiute Tribe of the Benton Paiute Reservation filed a federal lawsuit today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, demanding that the court halt a planned mass removal of wild horses from the Montgomery Pass Wild Horse Territory before federal agencies move forward on July 8.
The tribe is also seeking a temporary restraining order to stop the operation while the case proceeds.
The complaint, filed by the tribe, Chairman Shane Saulque and Ronda Kauk, a member of the Mono Lake Kootzaduka’a Tribe and the Benton Paiute Tribe’s cultural monitor, names the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and senior officials at both agencies as defendants. It alleges the federal government approved the removal of 624 wild horses — 90% of the herd — from the tribe’s ancestral homelands without completing the legally required government-to-government consultation, identifying sacred sites and cultural resources within the operation’s footprint, or assessing the impact of helicopter operations on Benton Paiute land.