Responding to our motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction, BLM today informed Judge Amy Berman Jackson that the agency had decided to rescind its plan to castrate and return stallions that it rounds up from the Little Colorado and White Mountain herd management areas in Wyoming. The plan – opposed by plaintiffs American Wild Horse Preservation Coalition, Western Watersheds Project, and three individuals – would have set a dangerous precedent on public lands. In returning geldings to the range, BLM would have undermined the will of Congress under the Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act to preserve and protect these horses as “wild,” “freeroaming” “components of the public land,” and it would have also violated the National Environmental Policy Act for failing to consider any of the various devastating environmental impacts of this action. Our brief in support of the motion is here. Fifty-four members of Congress also today sent a letter to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar decrying the plan to geld horses as “inhumane” and contrary to law.
Created by the public interest law firm Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal in Washington, D.C.
