Note to Wild Horse Education (WHE) Readers:

At WHE we file cases that go “out of the box” not knowing what the outcome will be. We are the only organization to bring documentation to court against inhumane treatment. We were told we could never win. We won, not once but multiple times. WHE also brought a massive First Amendment challenge to access roundups and holding facilities. We won that too. Over the years we have stopped removals, based on our first hand documentation, that proved BLM assertions false; ex. Snowstorm, Jackson, McDermitt. 

We can create the challenges needed to change the artificial and arbitrary boundary lines our wild ones are being squeezed out of by exploitation. We can create legal challenges that allow them an actual fair share of public land. But we need your help. We have a contribution match  through Friday. If you can help us… we need you. (scroll to bottom of the page).

“Filing a case can be the beginning of a very public conversation. Advocacy for the wild, wild horse is about land management. We have been trying very hard to get the conversation to the ground. We are ready to push that conversation, hard.”

Legal Challenge Filed to Protect Wild Horses, on the Land They Now Stand

Today Wild Horse Education filed a legal court challenge against the “Gold Bar Mine project” in Nevada. The mine project disturbs multiple aspects of wild horse and wildlife habitat. Three wild horse HMA’s will be effected with the Roberts Mountain herd taking the brunt.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) acknowledges the flaws in the boundary lines of the Roberts Mountain Herd Management Area (HMA). More than half the wild horses in the HMA live over the boundary line, historically, in the area designated as Herd Area (HA) and that area is not managed for wild horses. Protections for wild horses are literally defined by the land they stand on. Horses outside the HMA are considered in trespass and subject to removal.

“How many times have wild horses been left as nothing but a footnote to BLM managers as they permit profit driven exploitation of the land?” said Laura Leigh acting as legal representation for the parties, “Wild horses are not a footnote of management, they are a resource of extreme public interest. Land managers need to begin to recognize that fact and the public needs to demand more from land managers. If they don’t? more wild horses will pay the ultimate price for inept and lazy management practices.”

“In June I visited the mine project site,” said Elyse Gardner Walsh, party to the action, “I saw plenty of evidence of wild horses moving through the project area. I am deeply troubled at what I perceive to be a lawless recklessness on the part of the BLM as it doles out leases and clears projects to go ahead without regard for the protocols put in place to protect wild horses.”

While the proposed budget moves into conference in Congress, that carries the threat of killing tens of thousands of wild horses in holding, the fight to keep them free, on the public land they inhabit, is more important than ever.

The legal case filed asks that BLM set aside the decision until the flaws in boundary lines are corrected.

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Can you help us to expand these types of legal challenges?

Roberts Mountain Mustangs.