The Bureau of Land Management's Stillwater Field Office has prepared a new Determination of NEPA Adequacy (DNA), numbered DOI-BLM-NV-C010-2026-0020-DNA, for a helicopter gather at the Clan Alpine Herd Management Area in Churchill County, Nevada. The gather would remove wild horses until the population is down to the low Appropriate Management Level of 612. Its conclusion is that no new environmental review is needed.
It is worth reading closely. A DNA is one of the quietest ways for a federal agency to act. It is a short worksheet, not a new study, and it asks a single question: has the agency already done enough analysis? Here BLM says yes to all six adequacy questions.
The scope is bigger than the HMA
The Clan Alpine HMA covers about 304,763 acres. The gather area covers about 604,380, roughly double, because horses live outside the HMA boundary. The worksheet says helicopters would be the primary method, with roping and bait-and-water trapping used "as needed." Horses would go to off-range corrals for adoption, sale with limitations, or off-range pastures. Some released mares would get fertility control vaccines, freeze-marks, microchips, and GPS collars or tail tags.
Clan Alpine removal area
The whole justification is a 2023 document
Everything rests on the Clan Alpine Horse Gather EA from September 2023, with its Finding of No Significant Impact. The worksheet reasons that the new gather is just a follow-up the 2023 EA already anticipated within its ten-year framework, so the effects must be the same and nothing needs a fresh look.
The worksheet's answer on new information and circumstances is that none has emerged since 2023. That is a very large claim for three years. The worksheet cites no new data to back it up. It does not give a current population estimate or say how many horses would be removed. Elsewhere it leans on records that are much older: the 1992 Final Multiple Use Decision that set the AML, the 1993 herd management area plan, a 2001 land use plan, and land health assessments from 2009 to 2014.