Wild horses being warehoused at Palomino Valley near Reno. (Photo by Jo Mitchell)
The Bureau of Land Management today filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it in Nevada federal court over its failure to properly manage wild horses as required by law.
The suit from the Nevada Association of Counties, the Nevada Farm Bureau Federation and others asks the court to issue an injunction or writ requiring federal agencies to follow the wild horse and burro law, because its current failure to do so is starving the very animals the law was intended to protect, damaging range land used for cattle grazing and taking private water rights.
The BLM argues the suit is nonjusticiable because it fails to identify a single final action by the agency that caused damage, but rather asks the court to micromanage the BLM’s thousands of daily decisions about the management of wild horses.
But perhaps the court needs to play the role of Solomon and split this baby, because, as the BLM motion notes, the law clearly requires the BLM to maintain the wild horse population and destroy unadoptable wild horses, but the congressional budget specifically denies any funding for doing so.
The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 says, “The Secretary (of Interior) shall cause additional excess wild free roaming horses and burros for which an adoption demand by qualified individuals does not exist to be destroyed in the most humane and cost efficient manner possible.”
But this year’s budget states, “Appropriations herein made shall not be available for the destruction of healthy, unadopted, wild horses and burros in the care of the Bureau or its contractors or for the sale of wild horses and burros that results in their destruction for processing into commercial products.”
“Specifically, Congress has decreased funding available to BLM for horse management – thereby limiting BLM’s capacity to remove excess horses – even as it has forbidden BLM from humanely destroying excess horses stored in BLM’s long-term holding faculties (facilities?),” the motion to dismiss whines. “Because BLM is obligated to care for these horses, funds available for range-management are even more limited than is readily apparent, and populations of wild horses have grown accordingly. Both federal and independent observers have noted that this population growth may strain resources located or dependant on public lands, including those in Nevada.”
The motion to dismiss suggests that the proper course for the plaintiffs is not through the courts “but through petitions to Congress and the Executive.” A lot of good it does to ask Harry Reid’s Congress to do anything. It is inert, inept and too often self contradictory.
There are about 40,000 wild horses and burros on the open range in the West, which exceeds by nearly 14,000 the number the range can handle. Off the range, there are more than 48,000 animals in either short-term corrals or long-term pastures, which the taxpayers are feeding for their average 25-year life span.
About half of the BLM’s horse and burro budget is spent on warehousing those 48,000 animals.
The motion to dismiss also challenges any Fifth Amendment “takings” claims due to the wild horses drinking privately owned water. “Of the courts that have considered whether damage to private property by protected wildlife constitutes a ‘taking,’ a clear majority have held that it does not and that the government thus does not owe compensation,” the BLM says.
There is clearly damage being done to Nevada range land and ranchers. They have a right to petition for redress of grievances, but to whom?
4TH ST8 
This alone should be proof enough that central control is a bad idea.
Break up the beast of federal control.
Seek redress from whom, indeed! I suppose the thing to do is roll over and play dead as the courts and the congress have done in this time of Obama. All of these federal agencies have taken the stand that Obama has, he rules, citizens mean nothing, they rule, horses mean nothing. Don’t bother him or them with details. nyp should like that latter sentence.
Indeed, break up the federal colonization of Western land.
The “wild horse” problem will not be solved until there is a cultural shift away from viewing horses and burros as sacrosanct animals. In addition to such as PETA, the general public sentiment towards them is not unlike how many view their family pet cats and dogs. Let someone suggest that an alternative to warehousing 45,000 of these feral animals would be to turn them into animal or human food, as is done in parts of Europe and Asia, and there wouldbe raging oprobrium against anyone so suggesting this practical solution..
Can individual states or counties declare open season on them?
Nope. Against federal law. They are not “wild.” They are an invasive species.
[…] for wild horses, there are now more being held in holding pens around the country than in the wild, and those in […]