SALON

Friday, Jan 11, 2013 2:45 AM UTC

Federal judge lifts ban on Nevada horse roundup

By

Topics: From the Wires,

RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Bureau of Land Management can resume its roundup of dozens of wild mustangs in northern Nevada, but wranglers must limit their use of electric cattle prods and take other steps to ensure the animals are treated humanely, a federal judge said Thursday.

U.S. District Judge Miranda Du’s formal order lifted an injunction she issued last week blocking the roundup of 50 horses near the Idaho-Nevada line.

Although disappointed that the roundup was set to resume Friday, horse protection advocates were pleased that Du’s order outlined specific conduct for the BLM.

“The judge has begun what the BLM has failed to do, and that is to establish humane standards for roundups,” said Deniz Bolbol, spokeswoman for the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign.

The judge prohibited the routine use of “hot shot/electric prod treatments” to expedite movement of horses through gathering and loading chutes, allowing their use only “as necessary to ensure the safety and security of the horses.”

Also, BLM contract helicopter pilots who chase the horses toward the gathering traps must make sure that slower young foals aren’t separated from the herd. And the judge specifically forbade the agency from driving horses into barbed-wire fences, as they did with several earlier in the roundup at the Owyhee complex about 90 miles northwest of Elko.

Laura Leigh, a photographer and director of Wild Horse Education who has been battling BLM over a series of roundups for years, captured that incident on video.

It was among the evidence she submitted in obtaining last week’s emergency injunction, along with footage of wranglers repeatedly shocking horses in a loading chute on Nov. 30.

She hailed the ruling as a significant victory.

“Three years of running this grueling marathon from range to courtroom to gain an honest conversation about the inhumane handling of an American treasure and we now have the very first specific language toward actually gaining the first humane care standard,” Leigh said in an email to The Associated Press late Thursday.

During a hearing in her Las Vegas courtroom earlier Thursday, Du said she intended to grant the government’s request to lift the injunction because opponents had failed to prove the agency lacked authority to remove the mustangs from the high desert.

But she also indicated she was inclined to include language in the order addressing concerns about the allegations of abuse, including repeated shocking of mustangs and running animals to the point of exhaustion.

“If I were to allow the gather to continue, I would want to ensure the horses were gathered in a humane way, as the BLM is required to do by statute,” she told Justice Department lawyer Erik Petersen, referring to the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burros Act of 1971.

BLM argues the herd in the Owyhee Horse Management Area is too large to be sustained given lingering drought. The agency has warned that some of the animals could die if they aren’t removed before spring.

Wild horse protection advocates countered by accusing the agency of shamefully exaggerating the threat to the animals in an area.

“I think it is fiction, your honor,” said Gordon Cowan, a Reno lawyer for Leigh. “There’s really no emergency out there. There’s no proof of stress on the range.”

More By Scott Sonner.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations