Feds Sued Over Plan to Cull Wild Horses in Nevada

June 29, 2018

AWHC Contributor

WASHINGTON (CN) – Wild horse advocates have taken legal action against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over a controversial plan to remove wild horses from rural Nevada. The lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., claims the plan violates a federal law designed to protect these animals.

Lawsuit Details

In a federal lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., the plaintiff groups argue that the plan, created a decade ago but approved only this year, violates a 40-year-old federal law that empowers the agency to manage wild horse populations.

The removal plan is part of a proposed resource management plan initiated in 2008 and approved in March of this year. It outlines the needs of wild horse populations and addresses concerns about their presence on grazing lands throughout the western United States.

Controversial Removal Plan

According to the complaint, the plan includes the removal of about 1,700 horses from 700,000 acres of public lands known as the Caliente Herd Area Complex. The plaintiffs, including the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign), Western Watersheds Project, and landowner Laura Cunningham, oppose this removal plan.

The complaint alleges that the agency failed to meet federal requirements to disclose and consider baseline information and environmental impacts from the removal. It also claims that the effects of livestock grazing and wild horse use on the environment were not analyzed.

The groups argue that the Bureau of Land Management did not consider reasonable alternatives, such as reducing the amount of livestock permitted on these federal public lands.

Violation of Federal Law

This oversight, the complaint claims, violates the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971, which was enacted to protect and support wild horse populations.

“The wild horse family bands in the Caliente Complex are extremely popular with wild horse advocates, photographers, and tourists,” said Ginger Kathrens, Executive Director of The Cloud Foundation, another plaintiff in the suit, during a public comment submitted last year during the BLM’s review of the proposed removal plan.

She criticized the agency for claiming that available grazing land had been reduced while asserting that the population had grown at a rate necessitating removal.