The core issues for wild horses are management, and the setting of the wild horse population level allowed to remain on the range. The terminology is BLM’s Herd Management Area Plan (HMAP), the equivalency for the Forest Service is Wild Horse Territory Plan (WHT plan), and the setting of the population number or level of wild horses allowed to remain in their legally-defined areas are “Appropriate Management Levels (AMLs).”
At the low end of the “Appropriate Management Level” range that federal agencies use, California BLM and Forest Service plans allow for only 1,237 wild horses statewide. And just one herd located entirely within the state—the Devil’s Garden Plateau in northeastern California—meets basic genetic-viability benchmarks.
SOURCES
BLM California 2025 wild horse population statistics.
U.S. Forest Service California 2014 wild horse population statistics. The most comprehensive USFS-wide population table is from about 2014, so current numbers are incomplete and partly outdated.