Litigation
Victory for Devil’s Garden Wild Horses, Following Lawsuit
The American Wild Horse Campaign and the Animal Legal Defense Fund continue work to ensure wild horses’ safety
SAN FRANCISCO (March 27, 2020)… Today, the American Wild Horse Campaign, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and local advocate Carla Bowers are dismissing a high-profile lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service (Forest Service) over the federal government’s plan to sell wild horses captured from the Devil’s Garden Wild Horse Territory in northeast California’s Modoc National Forest for slaughter.
Litigation Update: Halting BLM Spay Experiments
By Brieanah Schwartz, AWHC Policy Counsel
(March 20, 2020) One of the more egregious plans the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released for “management” of wild horses is the ovariectomy via colpotomy experiments. Here is a brief history on how AWHC and our coalition partners have been integral in stopping these cruel experiments from being performed on wild mares from the Warm Spings Herd Management Area (HMA).
About Our Lawsuit: Beaver County Utah Calls for Removal of Mustangs
On February 6, 2017, Plaintiff, Beaver County, Utah, filed a complaint seeking to compel the BLM to remove all excess wild horses from the Sulphur Herd Management Area (HMA). This request seeks to eliminate hundreds of federally-protected wild horses from the HMA in order to reduce the competition for limited resources on the range and ensure that ranchers’ continued access to public lands for grazing domestic livestock.
About Our Lawsuit: The Eradication of the Caliente Mustangs
In June of 2018 AWHC, The Cloud Foundation (TCF), and Western Watersheds Project (WWP) filed suit in the U.S.
Lawsuit Break Down: Nevada Wild Horse Population Plan
Brieanah Schwartz, AWHC Policy Counsel
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 im
Building a Firewall for Wild Horses: AWHC's Ovariectomy Lawsuit
Brieanah Schwartz | September 30, 2019
Forest Service relents on protecting animals from slaughter
(May 30, 2019 The Forest Service has abandoned a controversial proposal to sell wild horses rounded up at California's Modoc National Forest without first ensuring that the animals don't end up in slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada.
However, a Forest Service spokeswoman told E&E News today that the decision is not final and is only in place while a federal lawsuit challenging so-called sales without limitation is resolved.
BLM to Proceed with Barbaric Sterilization of Wild Mares, Despite Repeated Public Outcry and Legal Opposition
BURNS, Oregon (May 14, 2019) - Despite multiple lawsuits, federal injunctions and overwhelming public opposition, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced last night that it is again moving ahead with barbaric experiments on captive wild mares. It will be the third time that the agency has attempted to implement the controversial and cruel procedure that is being pushed by a livestock industry lobbying group financed by Lucas Oil.
Judge Urges Forest Service to Strike a Deal in Wild Horses Suit
May 9, 2019
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) – A federal judge urged the U.S. Forest Service on Thursday to work out a deal with animal rights activists who claim a plan to shrink the glut of wild horses in a Northern California forest will cause some horses to get slaughtered.
“I’m going to give you this opportunity to work something out before the hammer drops because once it drops, it drops,” U.S. District Judge James Donato said in court Thursday.
