Wild horses are managed for self‐sustaining populations of healthy, free‐roaming animals in balance with other uses and the productive capacity of their habitat. Management of wild horses is performed consistent with the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, multiple use objectives in the FLPMA, and conformance with the Wyoming Standards for Healthy Rangelands (Appendix N), and in compliance with relevant court orders and agreements, including the Consent Decree (August 2003).

Adverse impacts to wild horses include management that reduces vegetation for forage, the availability of water, or other habitat components necessary to maintain the health of horses and the initial appropriate management level in HMAs. Beneficial impacts to wild horses result from management that increases the health, forage, genetic variability, and movement of wild horses in HMAs.

Direct impacts to wild horses result from management that affects their health, forage, and free-roaming nature. Actions that alter wild horse habitat in HMAs, such as surface disturbance that reduces forage in the short term, would result in direct impacts. Indirect impacts to wild horses may result from the construction of fences and activities that increase the competition for resources among wild horses, livestock, and wildlife in the long term, such as increased resource uses and land tenure adjustments or other management actions that subsequently alter the health, forage, and free-roaming character of wild horses.