Wild Horse Litigation

The Wildlife Law Program of Friends of Animals focuses on the defense of wildlife and their habitats throughout the world. Attorneys with the Wildlife Law Program utilize a variety of environmental laws to promote the rights of wildlife, including the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and international treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Our current wild horse litigation includes these actions:

FoA files lawsuit against BLM plan to annihilate Wyoming’s wild horses on behalf of meat industry

Friends of Animals filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its plan to eliminate wild horses from more than one million acres of federal public lands in the southwestern part of the state. The BLM’s illegal plan—an attempt to appease the meat industry, specifically the Rocks Springs Grazing Association—would zero out the wild horse populations in the Salt Wells Creek and Great Divide Basin herd management areas and gut their numbers in the Adobe Town HMA.

“The tragedy of wild horse roundups exists because the BLM is devoted to turning public lands into feedlots for cows and sheep to appease the meat industry,” said Priscilla Feral president of Friends of Animals. “Friends of Animals finds this morally and ecologically reprehensible, as wild horses are driven off lands to leave the bulk of water, forage and space for doomed domestic animals.”

 BLM is now planning to roundup and permanently remove nearly 3,000 wild horses from the area.

FoA’s lawsuit alleges that the BLM violated multiple federal acts set up to protect wild horses by authorizing the permanent removal of wild horses from the Wyoming Checkerboard, where public lands are interspersed with private parcels like those owned by the RSGA. FoA’s lawsuit is currently before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and a favorable decision could put an end to BLM’s cruel plan to eliminate wild horses from the area.

“Not only could this extreme, reckless decision be devastating to thousands of wild horses across southwest Wyoming, it could also set a dangerous precedent that allows BLM to ignore the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971, which was intended to protect wild horses on federal public lands,” added Jennifer Best, director of Friends of Animals Wildlife Law Program. “BLM is not above the law.” (Read full article).

Friends of Animals files lawsuit to stop the transfer of wild horses to new off-range facility in Nevada

Wild horses and burros across the American West routinely are injured and die after being torn from their homes on public lands and sent to off-range corrals (ORCs) as part of the Bureau of Land Management’s longstanding eradication policies. Despite the federal protections provided to these “living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the American West,” the BLM does nothing to ensure that wild horses are treated decently in these facilities. Friends of Animals challenged BLM’s decision to award a contract to Nevada-based JS Livestock to construct and operate a massive off-range wild horse and burro corral on private land near Winnemucca, Nevada that could hold up to 4,000 wild horses.

The Winnemucca off range corral presents unique hazards due to the presence of silty clay soil at the site that is prone to dust and flooding and extreme heat that could cause unnecessary suffering for wild horses and burros, many of whom will not have access to shade or shelter. A Nevada district court largely deferred to BLM and overlooked the serious harm this facility will cause and BLM’s faulty process approving the contract. However, Friends of Animals quickly appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop wild horses from being sent to the inhumane facility and to set a new precedent for wild horse management.

“Friends of Animals cannot sit idly by while BLM transfers thousands of wild horses from their homes in the wild to the cramped and dangerous feedlot near Winnemucca,” said Jennifer Best, director of Friends of Animals Wildlife Law Program, based in Centennial, CO. “This destruction is outrageous.”  Disease outbreaks are common at off-range corrals. For example, in April and May 2022, at least 145 wild horses died from equine influenza at the Cañon City ORC in Colorado. These types of outbreaks occur often given the conditions of the facilities, inadequate regulations and unenforceable guidelines. Read full story here.

FoA secures some wins restricting BLM’s authority to continually roundup and remove wild horses based on outdated information but continues to push for more protection in the Court of Appeals

Friends of Animals is in court fighting for a more informed and transparent management of wild horses. Decisions about wild horses should take into account public opinion and the latest scientific information, not just politics of the agency.

Friends of Animals brought a lawsuit after the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) started issuing decisions that essentially gave the agency unfettered discretion to round up wild horses for a decade into the future. These plans essentially eliminated public input and oversight of how the BLM manages wild horses.

This is an agency that has a long history of mismanaging wild horses and catering to destructive industries that see wild horses as a roadblock to money-making ventures on public lands. For decades, the BLM has ignored science to justify its wild horse eradication efforts. As the Governmental Accountability Office declared back in 1990, “Despite congressional direction, BLM’S decisions on how many wild horses to remove from federal rangelands have not been based on direct evidence that existing wild populations exceed what the range can support.” In 2013, the National Academy of Science stated, “How Appropriate Management Levels [for wild horse herds] are established, monitored, and adjusted is not transparent to stakeholders, supported by scientific information, or amenable to adaptation with new information and environmental and social change.” BLM merely stuck its head in the sand and asked for more money and discretion to round up wild horses.

This did not go unnoticed by Friends of Animals. We filed a lawsuit in August of 2018 in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. challenging four of the Bureau of Land Management’s 10-year management plans that authorize fertility control and ongoing, multiple roundups and removals of wild horses from six herd management areas (HMAs): Nevada’s Pine Nut Mountain, Eagle, Chokecherry, and Mt. Elinor HMAs; and Utah’s Muddy Creek and Onaqui Mountain HMAs.

In March 2024, the judge largely sided with Friends of Animals finding that Congress “took steps to ensure that the Bureau based its decisions on accurate information and science, rather than pressure from interest groups or guesswork.” The Court restricted BLM’s Decisions to continually roundup and remove wild horses and burros after it reached the stated appropriate management level (AML).

While this is a huge gain for wild horses, Friends of Animals also acknowledges that there is still much more to be done. Notably, BLM is still rounding up horses for multiple years by claiming they are above the AML. We appealed parts of the March 2024 Decision to stop BLM from sidestepping the law. FoA’s appeal seek to prevent BLM from relying on outdated information and discarding input from the public when making decision about wild horses. The case is currently pending before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“BLM desires to take this type of long-range, but short-sighted, approach to manage wild horses for nearly all herd management areas to avoid further scrutiny of its overall plan to decimate wild horse populations on public lands.” said Jennifer Best, director of Friends of Animals Wildlife Law Program.

In its appeal, FoA states that in issuing these decisions, which authorize the continued roundups of wild horses for 10 years, BLM has disregarded its statutory and regulatory obligation to undertake roundup-specific analysis of the horses and their habitat. The BLM is also ignoring its responsibility to ensure public participation in such decisions.

It also states that in adopting these plans, BLM has significantly increased the likelihood that future wild horse removals and fertility control treatments will be based on obsolete forage data and outdated appropriate management level data.

BLM has approved similar long-term roundup plans in several other herd management areas in other states.

“The BLM felt more emboldened than ever because of the Trump administration to completely disregard the Wild Horse and Burro Act, which requires the agency to protect and manage wild free-roaming horses in a manner that is designed to achieve and maintain a thriving, natural ecological balance on public lands,” said Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals.

“The only thing the Trump administration cares about is courting oil and gas drillers and selling off public lands, and the only thing the BLM cares about is treating ranchers as clients. It’s a deadly combination for wild horses on public lands and we won’t stand by and do nothing.”

FoA makes gains to protect California’s wild horses and burros

Friends of Animals filed another lawsuit in the summer of 2024 challenging BLM’s decision to roundup and remove wild horses and burros from five home ranges in the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area on the California Nevada border. As a result of the lawsuit, we stopped BLM from rounding up and removing any burros from the Twin Peaks HMA and stopped the roundup and removal of wild horses from three out of the five home ranges. The lawsuit is still active as Friends of Animals seeks to prevent BLM from relying on outdated information to remove more wild horses and burros in the future. In this area cattle and sheep far outnumber wild horses and burros, and BLM needs to update its management plan to make more room for wild horses.

Friends of Animals offers new regulatory path for managing wild horses and burros

Friends of Animals submitted a rulemaking petition to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) seeking to halt wild horse and burro roundups and convene an independent panel of scientists to overhaul the agency’s controversial Wild Horse and Burro Program regulations and policies. Friends of Animals called for new regulations that would require BLM to consider the impact of cattle and sheep ranching on public land range assessments, and immediately reduce the number of cattle and sheep within wild horse and burro herd management areas when any wild horse and burro management is planned because of range deterioration. In addition, Friends of Animals called for  a phaseout of all livestock in areas designated for wild horses and burros as grazing permits expire. Although BLM officials indicated that they plan to propose new regulations governing the management of wild horses and burro, they have yet to publish any such rules. Friends of Animals remains committed to see serious reform in the agency’s wild horse and burro program and is considering bringing a lawsuit if the agency continues to mismanage wild horses and burros and drag its feet in issuing new regulations.