Litigation: NACO vs. DOI - A Landmark Case for Wild Horse Protection

May 29, 2014

AWHC Contributor

UPDATE: April 2, 2017: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's decision to dismiss this lawsuit, finding that the plaintiff "seeks judicial oversight and direction of virtually the entire federal wild horse and burro management program in Nevada,” which is not the judiciary’s role.

On December 30, 2013, the Nevada Association of Counties (NACO) and the Nevada Farm Bureau, acting on behalf of ranchers who graze livestock on public land, filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior and its Bureau of Land Management (BLM). They sought to compel the government to remove thousands of wild horses from public lands in Nevada and to sell captured mustangs for slaughter. This lawsuit is part of a strategy by Western ranchers to sue the BLM, knowing the agency will capitulate to their demands without mounting a serious legal defense. In Wyoming, a similar lawsuit was actually invited by Interior Department officials, resulting in a Consent Decree where the government agreed to drastically reduce wild horse populations in southwestern Wyoming, including the "zeroing out" of several large and important Herd Management Areas.

On April 3, 2014, the U.S. District Court District of Nevada granted the American Wild Horse Conservation (formerly American Wild Horse Campaign), joined by renowned author and Nevada resident Terri Farley and nationally-acclaimed wild horse photographer Mark Terrell, the right to intervene in the lawsuit. On May 29, 2014, the American Wild Horse Conservation, Farley, and Terrell filed a motion to dismiss the case based on its lack of legal merit and the plaintiffs' lack of standing to bring the case in the first place.

The following month, the American Wild Horse Conservation, Farley, and Terrell filed a motion to dismiss the NACO case, and on March 12, 2015, the court granted their motion, dismissing the case "with prejudice," meaning that the case cannot be amended or re-filed. The American Wild Horse Conservation et al. were represented in the case by the public interest law firm Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal.

NACO and the Farm Bureau have appealed this case, and the American Wild Horse Conservation is now defending the lower court verdict in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.