IDA Blog

Wild Horses & Burros

BLM reports that 74 horses were captured on Monday in the Calico Complex.  No helicopters flew Tuesday due to poor weather conditions.

The captured horses have been taken to the Fallon holding facility in Nevada. An IDA observer is on the way to Nevada to visit this newly-opened holding facility today. She will also observe the roundup activities tomorrow.  Check back later for more reports and photos from the holding facility.

Despite our best efforts, the BLM today began the cruel roundup of 2,700 wild horses living peacefully in the 500,000-acre Calico Mountain Complex in northwestern Nevada. See video of these beautiful horses here.

The BLM knows that its latest assault on wild horses is so shameful that it cannot stand the light of day. So the agency is setting up its capture pens on private land from which the public will be barred.  No one will be able to witness the brutal helicopter stampede of the horses over treacherous winter terrain. No one will see the BLM chase older horses, pregnant horses, and little foals to the point of exhaustion, some will be literally run to death. The separation of foals from their mothers, the shattering of horse family bands will happen behind closed doors.

In the face of growing opposition, international media attention, a federal court ruling suggesting the roundup be postponed, and pending complaints with the Interior Department and White House to stop the cruel action, the BLM chose the coward’s way out. Never mind that just 21 days ago, BLM chief Don Glenn proclaimed publicly and repeatedly that “All of our gathers are open to the public; the public is invited to come and watch all the time.”

Don Glenn’s 180 degree reversal is not surprising in light of the sheer inhumanity of BLM roundups.

This is what the BLM does not want the public to see : This pregnant mare was chased to the point of collapse in a winter BLM roundup in 2007.

Evading public scrutiny by conducting a roundup in secret on private land during the week between Christmas and New Year’s when government officials are on holiday and unable to hear official complaints is business as usual for the BLM.

But we expect more of the Obama Administration, which was elected with promises of change and transparency.  Sadly, those promises ring hollow for America’s wild horses. In reality, the Administration has accelerated the pace of wild horse roundups, and plans to remove 12,000 horses a year from their Western ranges over the next three years.  The vast majority of these horses will be sent to holding facilities in the Midwest, where they will join the 33,000 wild horses already removed from the range and currently warehoused at taxpayer expense.

In the end, the number of horses in government holding facilities will far exceed those left in the West.  The plan remains unchanged, despite the federal court ruling on IDA’s lawsuit that the BLM’s stockpiling of horses in Midwestern warehouses was never authorized by Congress.

Despite the horrible fact that the Calico roundup continues, we can assure you that we will not stop fighting to protect wild horses. We will fight for what is right and just for these iconic American animals.  While the same government officials who have overseen this ill-fated program for decades may think they will continue to get away with this injustice – they are wrong.

Add your voice to the growing chorus of outrage over the all-out assault on America’s wild horses. Please tell the Administration to change course and start by immediately suspending the Calico Complex roundup in Nevada.

Our Legal Team!

Our lead attorney, William J. Spriggs, delivered a very effective oral argument summarizing our case. Cleverly, he began by telling the judge all the problems with the government’s wild horse and burro management program that we were NOT there to discuss, reciting a litany of BLM’s transgressions resulting from its 30-year history of mismanagement.  Mr. Spriggs said those issues were for another day, then launched into very effective arguments about our case, specifically why the indiscriminate roundup of thousands of horses off of the Calico range was illegal and the mass warehousing of wild horses in holding facilities in Kansas and other non-Western states was never authorized by Congress.

The Justice Department attorney defending BLM countered by attacking our standing, claiming that the plaintiffs would not be harmed by the removal of 80-90 percent of the horses in the Calico range because there would still be horses left in the Complex. He likened helicopters used in roundups to sheep-herding dogs, and said that individualized, on-the-range determinations of the horses’ conditions could not be made because BLM could not get within a mile of them. The DOJ attorney then claimed that the overriding mandate of the 1971 Act was the maintenance of a healthy range for multiple purposes, and that the BLM was mandated by law to remove horses.  (Mr. Spriggs later remarked to the judge that he wasn’t sure what law the DOJ attorney was referring to, but we were talking about the WILD FREE-ROAMING HORSE and BURRO Act!)

The Honorable Judge Paul Friedman was friendly and engaged throughout the hearing. He asked many excellent questions, and observed that this was an interesting case.

This lawsuit lays bare what we believe are these indisputable facts:

• The BLM is authorized only to round up horses who are both excess and adoptable.
• Congress intended for on-the-range management of the horses, with removal as a last resort, only after other methods of population control have been tried and failed. Yet the BLM has thumbed its nose at this mandate, spending three-quarters of its resources to remove and stockpile horses from their home ranges, and less than 3 percent of its budget on range management activities such as water enhancement and field studies to understand wild horse behavior, biology and social dynamics.
• The long-term holding facilities in Kansas, Oklahoma and South Dakota are patently illegal, because the Secretary of Interior is not authorized to relocate horses to private lands or to lands where they were not found in 1971. The horses in these warehouses have not lost their designation as wild horses nor the federal protections that come with it.

Judge Friedman asked for some additional information on case law, which has been submitted to him, and a decision is expected next week.  The threshold for a preliminary injunction is very high, and even if we don’t succeed on this motion, this hugely important case will likely still go forward (we are seeking both a preliminary and a permanent injunction of the Calico roundup).

Excellent coverage of the hearing was provided  in an Associated Press story and a superb piece on Channel 8 TV in Las Vegas by stellar investigative reporter George Knapp, whose investigative series, Stampede to Oblivion, is a masterpiece exposing the BLM’s 30-year history of malfeasance, mismanagement and cruelty to our nation’s wild horses.

We are deeply grateful to the Herculean effort of our brilliant legal team from Buchanan, Ingersoll and Rooney — Mr. Spriggs, his partner David Taylor, Ibie Falcuson, Katie Allen, Katie Flood and Marty Scully — launched on behalf of the horses.

We will keep you posted on what happens, and meanwhile — keep your fingers crossed and pray for a good ruling for the wild horses next week!

For the past several weeks, Mr. William Spriggs and his amazing team of attorneys at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney’s Washington, DC offices have been working tirelessly AND pro bono on our lawsuit to stop the Bureau of Land Management’s roundup of almost 3,000 horses in the Calico Mountains Complex in northwestern Nevada. Our case maintains that the BLM’s plan to remove 80-90 percent of the horses living in this protected area and stockpile them in government holding facilities is flatly illegal.

Some of the horses the BLM wants to round up in the Calico Complex contending that they are overpopulated and starving. These horses look healthy and sound, as is their range, according to local ecologists and wildlife biologists.

Just today, famed children’s author Terri Farley, officially joined IDA and Nevada ecologist Craig Dower as plaintiff’s in this important lawsuit.  Read IDA’s news release here. Ms. Farley’s beloved Phantom Stallion book series, which is set in the Calico Mountains and tells the stories of the horses living there. The wildly popular series with young readers has sold over a million copies.

Last week, Ms. Farley hand delivered more than 200 letters from young people to the BLM Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board at its meeting in Reno. She and her young readers are passionate advocates for America’s wild horses, and we are grateful to have her at our side in this fight.

Terri Farley presents letters from readers asking now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to save America's wild horses.

Drawing sent by one of Terri's readers, Michelle Baehner.

A hearing on our motion for an injunction to stop the roundup, which was delayed until December 28, 2009 after we filed suit, will take place on Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Paul Friedman.  I’ll be there along with Ms. Farley, Mr. Downer, and IDA research director Eric Kleiman to watch our brilliant legal team do battle with the government over its destructive and devastating wild horse policies

Meanwhile, the horses at the BLM’s Palomino Valley Adoption Center outside Reno, Nevada spent the weekend in the middle of a blizzard and below freezing temperatures confined to pens with no shelter or way to escape the harsh elements.

Some of these horses had just arrived from the Buckhorn herd management area in California, where the BLM conducted a secret roundup without public notice due to an “internal communications” error.

Although the BLM’s guidelines require adopters of wild horses to provide them with shelter, the agency does not abide by its own rules.  Wild horse advocates who live near the facility report observing horses in direct, blistering sun in 105 degree heat and withstanding harsh windstorms without even a tree to block strong gusts and blowing dust. Although the Palomino Valley center is supposed to be a short-term holding facility, investigative reporter George Knapp of KTLA-TV in Las Vegas reports that some horses stay here for years. Mr. Knapp’s investigative series Stampede to Oblivion is a must watch for all who care about America’s wild horses.

Palomino Valley is where the Calico horses are destined to go if we are not successful in stopping the roundup. Wish our attorneys luck and stay tuned for more updates.