Fighting for the Devils Garden Wild Horses

February 8, 2017

AWHC Contributor

The wild horse population living in the U.S. Forest Service's Devils Garden Wild Horse Territory is one of the largest and most significant wild horse populations left in California. The Devils Garden Wild Horse Territory spans more than 300,000 acres (470 square miles) in the Modoc National Forest in remote northeastern California. Wild horses have lived on the lands now known as the Devils Garden Wild Horse Territory for over 150 years.

In 2013, the Forest Service finalized a Devils Garden Plateau Wild Horse Territory Management Plan. The plan will eliminate more than 25,000 acres of prime wild horse territory and establish a population limit of 402 wild horses within the territory. The new plan is driven by livestock interests. The Forest Service even hired the Farm Bureau, which represents livestock operators who want access to taxpayer-subsidized grazing within the territory, to conduct the environmental analysis of the plan. Not surprisingly, this analysis failed to study the impact of privately-owned cows and sheep who graze in the Devil’s Garden and outnumber wild horses by as much as eight times. It also claimed that the action to carve out the middle section of the territory would have no detrimental impacts.

On March 24, 2014, the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Preservation), wild horse advocate Carla Bower, and Return to Freedom filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service over the management plan. Represented by the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the Los Angeles-based law firm Caldwell Leslie, and the D.C. public interest environmental law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal, we aim to stop the Forest Service from eliminating thousands of acres of protected wild horse habitat and rounding up as much as 80% of the wild horses living in the Devil’s Garden Wild Horse Territory. The lawsuit asserts that the Forest Service’s decision violates federal animal protection and environmental laws and unlawfully prioritizes ranchers and privately-owned livestock above federally protected wild horses.

On September 30, 2015, United States District Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled against AWHC's motion for summary judgment in our Devil’s Garden lawsuit. AWHC and our co-plaintiff have appealed the lower court ruling.

In late September/early October 2016, while the Devils Garden case was on appeal, the U.S. Forest Service conducted a roundup of wild horses from the Devils Garden Wild Horse Territory. Here are the stats for that roundup:

290 captured
68 stallions (age 6+) and one mare released.
209 horses shipped to BLM Litchfield holding facility in Susanville.
4 deaths at Litchfield (1 mare euthanized and 3 horses perished during "processing")
46 mares have been treated with PZP and are awaiting return to the WHT.

Oral arguments on our appeal took place on Wednesday, January 11th at the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC. The hearing went exceedingly well, and a national reporter predicts "eventual victory" in our case to defend the Devils Garden wild horses. A decision from the appeals court is expected in the next two to six months.

Read more about this important legal action below. AWHC is grateful to the Animal Legal Defense Fund which has supported this litigation from the start.