The fight over the management of wild horses in Nevada is heating up, with wild horse conservation groups being granted the right to intervene in two cases before the courts.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals yesterday granted Return to Freedom and Wild Horse Education status to intervene in one of the cases.
Legal action was launched by Eureka County and local ranchers to stop the planned return of 183 wild horses to the range following the roundup of 432 wild horses from the Fish Creek Herd Management Area in February by Bureau of Land Management (BLM) contractors. The plan for the release of the horses involves treating the mares with a long-acting birth control drug.
The claim asks that the wild horses be permanently removed.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals has dismissed the ranchers claim as having no standing to address these issues, but is allowing the county’s argument.
“It is time to move forward with proven, safe and humane solutions to manage wild horses and burros on their ranges sustainably,” Return to Freedom president Neda DeMayo said.
“Any other argument is a distraction that only serves the current inequitable distribution of our public land grazing and natural resources.”
Wild Horse Education founder and president Laura Leigh said: “It’s more than past time that we see management based on best practices as outlined by the best available science.
“Over and over again I document our wild horses and public lands suffer because of an agency that prioritizes livestock out of laziness or fear.
“In this case BLM has created an actual management plan that will address the gaps in data outlined by the National Academy of Sciences.
“It is time we put on our ‘grown up pants’ and step boldly into a world where facts trump fiction.”
Leigh said of the horses at the center of its case: “We are going to do everything we can to get them home.”
Meanwhile, the state of Wyoming is standing firm in its legal action against federal authorities over the management of wild horses in the state.
Federal officials and wild horse advocates have filed a motion to dismiss Wyoming’s lawsuit.
The state’s case is against the US Department of the Interior and the BLM. It wants the court to force the BLM to manage wild horses in Wyoming as required by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.
The Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act requires the BLM to manage wild horses below previously set appropriate levels and to remove excess horses when populations exceed those levels.
The state is concerned that these management levels are being exceeded and asserts that the federal government had failed to appropriately manage wild horses in Wyoming.
Governor Matt Mead said the lawsuit was effectively asking that the BLM be directed to “follow the law”.
“These motions to dismiss claim that Wyoming is trying to rewrite the law – this is inaccurate. BLM has failed to remove excess horses in accordance with the law in seven Wyoming herd management areas.”
“Wyoming range supports many wildlife species, including sage-grouse, antelope, deer, elk and horses,” Mead said.
“BLM’s failure to manage the horses has forced Wyoming to court because excess horses threaten the range and the animals that rely on it. The court should deny these motions to dismiss.”
The wild horse advocacy groups seeking dismissal of the case are the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign and the Cloud Foundation.
They argue that the state’s case doesn’t provide a specific action for review. They further argue that the state has failed to set out viable grounds on which a court could force the BLM to act.
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