In Response to Wild Horse Groups’ Legal Arguments, BLM Withdraws Pancake Complex Roundup Decision

Several weeks after a federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) should have considered declarations from four leading wild horse scientists who criticized the agency’s radical approach to wild horse management, which involves castrating male horses and returning them to the range with unknown, and likely severe, impacts to individual horses, their herds, and the public’s ability to view these horses in their natural “wild” state, BLM has filed a motion for voluntary remand asking for an opportunity to reconsider its decision.  Once the request is approved by the court, BLM’s November 2011 roundup decision will be withdrawn, and no management actions can be taken to round up wild horses in the Pancake Complex or to castrate male horses that live there unless and until BLM issues a new decision that fully complies with the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. 

Company Pulls The Plug On Industrial Wind Farm In Critical Indiana Bat Habitat

After years of controversy, energy company Gamesa has withdrawn its plans to build an industral wind power facility near Shaffer Mountain, Pennsylvania.  The project would have been placed in an important migratory corridor for Golden eagles and in the midst of a maternity colony of critically endangered Indiana bats.  This would have been the first time that a wind project – which according to leading experts would have killed and harmed Indiana bats due to turbine collisions and a pressurizing condition called barotrauma – would be sited in such a sensitive location for an endagered species.  On behalf of several conservation organizations and community members, we submitted multiple notice letters and comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers detailing various violations of the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, which inevitably influenced the company’s decision to withdraw from this project in lieu of more sustainable project locations elsewhere that will better allow for clean, renewable energy without sacrificing our nation’s important natural resources.   

Judge Says “Neigh” To BLM’s Refusal to Consider Expert Declarations about Wild Horse Gelding

A federal judge ruled yesterday that the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) should have considered the declarations of four leading wild horse scientists who criticized the agency’s new radical approach to wild horse management, which involves castrating male horses and returning them to the range with unknown, and likely severe, impacts to individual horses, their herds, and the public’s ability to view these horses in their natural “wild” state.  In making its novel decision to castrate hundreds of male horses at the Pancake Complex in Nevada, BLM studiously avoided considering these declarations, despite the fact that they had been submitted to the agency in a prior challenge to the same “pilot” program by conservation organizations in a case that the BLM mooted out by withdrawing the gelding proposal.  The court has now ordered the parties to re-commence summary judgment briefing on whether the use of gelding required an Environmental Impact Statement and was consistent with the mandates of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act, and whether the agency complied with its legal duties by proposing to permanently remove thousands of horses from the public lands on the grounds that the horses were damaging the range, while leaving tens of thousands of cattle to graze the same lands.  The decision can be found here.

Court Finds Plaintiffs Have Standing To Challenge ESA Violations At Sharp Park Golf Course

Last week the federal district court in San Francisco rejected the City of San Francisco’s arguments that plaintiffs lack Article III standing to challenge the City’s unlawful “take” of the imperiled California red-legged frog (CRLF) and San Francisco garter snake (SFGS) at Sharp Park golf course, a city-owned course that provides vital habitat for these ESA listed species.  The City had argued that there were so many CRLF at Sharp Park that plaintiffs’ interests in the species are not harmed when the City’s massive water pumping operations kill CRLF egg masses, and that there are so few SFGS that plaintiffs’ interests in that species are also not injured by activities, such as mowing operations, that risk killing SFGS. 

Finding that plaintiffs meet all the elements of Article III standing, the court explained that plaintiffs would have standing to challenge the take of CRLF irrespective of the species’ population, but that in addition “new evidence” suggests that the species may be declining at the golf course.  As regards the SFGS, the Court concluded that it “would be incongruous with the purposes of the ESA” to conclude that a plaintiff lacks standing where the species “is difficult to see, or worse, that because there are so few of the animals left, a person cannot be harmed by continued take.”

Because the City is seeking a Biological Opinion from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for its golf course operations, the court temporarily stayed proceedings in the suit.  The parties must update the court on the progress of that process over the next several months, after which the court will determine how to proceed.

A copy of the court’s ruling is here.

Court Finds That Rule To Protect Endangered Antelopes Must Not Be Delayed

In a long-running litigation saga, a federal district court yesterday denied two requests – both by organizations that represent canned hunting facilities and the sport hunters who frequent them – to temporarily block a rule from going into effect that will protect three highly imperiled species of antelopes that were listed as endangered in 2005.  In 2009, on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, the Humane Society of the United States, and Born Free USA, we obtained a judgment requiring the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that these species are not harmed under the Endangered Species Act unless strict permitting requirements are first satisfied to enhance the species’ recovery.  The rule went into effect today, and yesterday’s ruling – in which we participated on behalf of the same organizations as in the earlier lawsuit – effectively means that, at present, members of these species cannot be killed or otherwise harmed unless and until an entity obtains the permits required by law.  The court’s ruling can be viewed here.

Congratulations to Several MGC Alums (and future law clerk)!

This past weekend, former MGC paralegal Michelle Sinnott (a 2L at Vermont Law School) obtained the Best Brief Award at the National Animal Law Moot Court Competition at UCLA.  In the same event's legislative competition, former MGC law clerk Shari Berger Kulanu (a 3L at Drexel Law School) won the Legislative Drafting & Lobbying Competition, and also received an award for Best Bill and Fact Sheet.  At the Pace National Environmental Law Moot Court Competition, 2012 MGC summer law clerk Trevor Smith took home the Best Oralist Award.  Great job!

Lawsuit Prompts U.S. Forest Service To Cancel Wild Horse Roundup

On the hooves of a federal lawsuit we filed in December 2011 challenging various aspects of a wild horse gather decision by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, the Forest Service has decided to withdraw its participation in the roundup.  The Forest Service’s agreement not to gather horses as part of this decision means that 198 wild horses in the Monte Cristo Wild Horse Territory will be spared from roundups at this time, and will not be subject to gelding, sex-ratio skewing, and other controversial population control techniques that would otherwise have been implemented there.