Lawsuit Breakdown: Nevada Wild Horse Population Plan
Brieanah Schwartz, AWHC Policy Counsel
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a final plan at the end of 2017 to reduce the breeding population of wild horses in the Antelope and Triple B Complexes in Nevada to near extinction levels. This plan involved gelding 50% of the returned stallions, skewing the sex ratio to 60% male/40% female, and treating all returned mares with fertility control, either PZP or GonaCon. The National Academy of Sciences had indicated that GonaCon required further research before implementation on wild horse herds.
Lower Court
On February 6, 2018, American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign) and photographer Kimerlee Curyl filed suit in U.S. District Court in Nevada. The lawsuit challenged a ten-year plan by the BLM to round up and remove nearly 10,000 federally-protected wild horses from the Antelope and Triple B Herd Management Area (HMA) complexes in southeastern Nevada. The complaint argued against managing the remaining wild horses by castrating the stallions (gelding) and using an unproven birth control vaccine (GonaCon) on the mares.
The complaint emphasized that due to the scope and scientific controversy surrounding these management decisions, the BLM was required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) before proceeding. The concern was that gelding and GonaCon could drastically impair the wild horses’ natural behaviors and destroy the social organization of the herds.
We particularly argued against the BLM’s decision to implement gelding without referencing an ongoing gelding study in the same region or acknowledging the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report’s findings. The NAS report indicated that gelding would significantly alter the behaviors of wild and free-roaming male horses. Despite public comments urging a more detailed inclusion of the NAS report, the BLM downplayed its importance.
On June 29, 2018, we filed a motion for summary judgment, asking the Court to vacate the BLM’s final decision and associated Environmental Assessment. The government filed its own motion for summary judgment. The court held oral arguments on October 29, 2018, and subsequently ruled in favor of the BLM’s motion for summary judgment.
Our Litigation Now
We disagreed with the lower court ruling and filed our appeal on April 29, 2019, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. We evaluate our chances on appeal with a discerning eye, aiming to appeal only when a lower court decision sets a bad precedent. Our appeal focuses on the proposed gelding of wild horses within the Complexes, which we believe is our strongest claim.
The government filed its answer to our appeal, and we filed our reply at the beginning of October. This is standard procedure, and we will keep you updated as the case develops.
Brieanah Schwartz is Policy Counsel for the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign). Schwartz received her J.D. from the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law and graduated with a concentration in Environmental Law. She is barred in the District of Columbia and is responsible for advancing AWHC’s position before Congress and the administration, producing comments for AWHC, and assisting litigation teams. A long-time lover of wild horses, she self-published a book on Cumberland Island wild horses while attending Sweet Briar College. She resides in the Washington, D.C. area with her horse, Eire, dogs, Lady, Drover, and Dandy, and kitten, Pippy.