Gridlocked: In Wyoming’s Red Desert, the checkerboard has fueled a wild horse stalemate

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A dozen or so wild horse advocates and photographers were gathered on a ridgeline near White Mountain in August 2024 when news started spreading that federal land managers got the OK from the courts to eliminate two entire herds, and part of another, from 2.1 million acres of the Red Desert. Cheyenne resident and amateur photographer Robyn Smith was immediately bummed. “Argh, oh crap,” she said. “That’s a lot of horses.” More than 3,000 horses, U.S. District Court of Wyoming Judge Kelly Rankin had ruled, could go.

The group of activists was gathered to oversee an unrelated horse roundup in the so-called checkerboard region of southwest Wyoming, a 40-mile-wide swa