Gov. Hobbs Blocks Removal of Salt River Horses Amid Feud With State Rep. Reim

On August 18, Governor Katie Hobbs announced plans to pause removal of wild horses from Arizona’s Tonto National Forest in 2026 and 2027, giving researchers at public universities the chance to conduct a genetic viability study of the herd and present their findings.

A statement from the governor’s office explained that the study’s ultimate aim will be to help settle on a policy that will “ensure that the Salt River Horse Herd remains a genetically stable and healthy population,” whether that means allowing them to roam in their present habitat or moving them elsewhere. Thanks to the governor and the Arizona Board of Regents, researchers from the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University will get a $325,000 grant to undertake the study.

Republican District 3 Representative Cody Reim was quick to denounce the governor’s actions. In a statement released the day after Hobbs’s announcement, Reim accused the governor of dragging her feet on the issue for months, and then adopting portions SB 1199, which Reim helped advance and amend, for reasons of political expedience, while ignoring those provisions that would have made both the moratorium on removals and the genetic study effective.

According to Reim’s statement, advocates for the Salt River horses made more than 70 requests for a meeting on the issue, while Reim himself called on the Arizona Department of Agriculture (AZDA) to exercise its legal right to amend the Salt River Horse Herd Management Plan for 2026 through 2030. But Hobbs ignored all those efforts “until doing nothing carried a political cost. Her administration had the authority to stop these removals months ago. She waited until August to do what we were asking her to do in April and May,” Reim charged.

The dispute has now folded the fate of the Salt River horses into an increasingly political fight between Hobbs and Republican lawmakers.

Contrasting Approaches

SB 1199 called for suspending removals of horses for three years, while making exceptions for medical emergencies, and provided for careful genetic testing to assess factors such as “effective population size” and “inbreeding coefficients,” Reim contended. It would also have allowed parties with demonstrated expertise in equine genetics to bid for the $325,000 grant.

In contrast to SB 1199, Reim pointed out, the governor’s plan suspends removals for only two years, is vague as to the scope of the genetic testing, and eschews a competitive bidding process in favor of public universities.

“Governor Hobbs is giving herself political cover,” Reim charged. “If advocates later challenge the methodology or the study is used to justify more removals, she can blame the universities. We wanted the standards, qualifications and accountability established in law before the study began,” he added.

But for the horses and their supporters, the timing of Hobbs’s move seemed fortuitous. The governor’s decision came just weeks before the scheduled removal of 25 horses from the Salt River region, said a local news report.

As of January 2026, the herd’s total count stood at 274, including 132 stallions and 142 mares, with an average age of 11 years, according to the management plan. The Salt River Wild Horse Management Group (SRWHMG) put forward the proposal, which AZDA quickly accepted, to suspend humane adoptions of horses from the herd for two years while the study is underway.

Horses Belong

Those who argue that Salt River horses damage the local ecosystem when they run rampant ignore the fact that horses have occupied the area for many centuries, according to Scott Beckstead, government relations and policy director for American Wild Horse Conservation. Today, horses “live in balance with their habitat,” Beckstead told Arizona Globe. He acknowledged that, for some environmentalists, “only native species such as mule deer, coyotes, and other wild species should inhabit this area.” But the herd and the volume of tourism conspire to make that unlikely, he added.

Estimates vary as to when horses made their first appearance in North America, but Science and Conservation Center findings set their origin point at slightly under four million years ago. To view them as a destructive force is to ignore the sheer length of their presence in the region and their proven ability to dwell in harmony with the natural habitat, in Beckstead’s view.

The deeper archaeological record adds another layer to the debate. Equids lived in North America thousands of years before Europeans reintroduced the ancestors of today’s horses. Excavations by archaeologists Emil Haury and William W. Wasley at the Lehner Mammoth-Kill Site uncovered ancient horse remains alongside those of mammoths and other animals.

“Of course, the Salt River attracts up to three million visitors per year, so impacts from human tourism far exceed those caused by horses,” yet horses sometimes get the blame for real or perceived damage to the habitat, Beckstead observed.

A responsible conservationist approach would permit the horses to remain where they are, Beckstead and others believe. Although the public debate about what to do with the horses is likely to go on, Beckstead said he sees no need to move the horses, whose fertility is unlikely to swell drastically given the current use of a humane immunocontraception program making use of porcine zona pellucida (PZP). Since 2018, the SRWHMG, in fulfillment of a contract with the AZDA, has treated horses with PZP, he said.

“Certified darters administer PZP remotely in the field, so the mares don’t have to be captured,” Beckstead explained. “And the results are striking. Before the program took effect, the herd produced more than 100 foals in 2019,” he said. At present, the SRWHMG “reports an average of only one to two foals per year. The group estimates that, absent PZP, the population would have exceeded 1,000 horses by now,” he added.