Litigation
Interior Dept Officially Abandons Plan to Use Controversial Sterilization Surgeries on Wild Horses in Utah
(WASHINGTON, DC) June 25, 2021 — The U.S.Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officially dropped its plans to conduct inhumane sterilization surgeries on wild mares in Utah, and the American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) is again declaring victory in its legal effort to block the government from conducting the controversial procedure.
Leading Wild Horse Group Challenges Bureau of Land Management’s Mojave Desert Wild Burro Eradication Plan
Legal appeal cites failure to consider new research documenting key role that wild burros play in desert ecosystems
Interior Dept Faces Lawsuit Over Adoption Program That’s Sending Wild Horses & Burros to Slaughter
American Wild Horse Campaign announces intent to sue if the Bureau of Land Management’s Adoption Incentive Program is not terminated immediately
Government Abandons Plan to Subject Wild Horses in Utah to Controversial Sterilization Surgeries
Government Abandons Plan to Subject Wild Horses in Utah to Controversial Sterilization Surgeries
American Wild Horse Campaign declares victory for the third time in 5-year legal effort to block procedure
AWHC Active FOIA Litigation: Fighting for transparency in wild horse management
(March 31, 2021) The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted to “permit access to official information long shielded unnecessarily from public view” by creating a “right to secure such information from possibly unwilling official hands.” Dept't of Air Force v. Rose, 425 U.S. 352, 361 (1976).
“[D]isclosure, not secrecy, is the dominant objective of the Act.” John Doe Agency v. John Doe Corp., 493 U.S. 146, 152 (1989).
Our History Opposing Surgical Sterilization for Wild Mares
(March 3, 2021) Over the last four years, AWHC and its coalition partners filed successful litigation to block three previous attempts by the BLM to perform a controversial surgical procedure on wild mares in Oregon. The agency has now turned its sights on wild mares in Utah. In response, AWHC teamed up with Utah citizen and state wild horse expert Robert Hammer of WildHorseTourist.org to file suit to stop the BLM’s latest plan.
Lawsuit Filed to Stop “Barbaric” Wild Horse Sterilization Surgeries
WASHINGTON, DC (December 11, 2020) —The American Wild Horse Campaign (AWHC) and Utah citizen Robert Hammer filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of the Interior to stop the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from performing risky and inhumane surgical sterilization surgeries on federally-protected wild mares (female horses) recently rounded up in Utah.
Antelope/Triple B 10-Year Plan Litigation
At the end of 2017, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released a final plan to reduce the breeding population of wild horses in both the Antelope and Triple B Complexes in Nevada to near extinction levels – 227 in Antelope and 272 in Triple B – by gelding 50% of the returned stallions, skewing the sex ratio of these wild horse populations to 60% male/40% female, and treating all the returned mares with fertility control, either PZP or GonaCon, a vaccine that the National Academy of Sciences said required further research before implementation on wild horse herds.
AWHC Defending Wild Horses in Court Against Rancher Attacks
(July 2, 2020) Our litigation not only involves direct challenges to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service management plans. We also intervene in lawsuits where ranching interests have sued the government to compel the removal of wild horses from their home ranges. Here are two examples of open cases where we intervened against ranchers and to protect the freedom of wild horses on our public lands.
Beaver County Utah Intervention Litigation
