They are asking in a lawsuit filed Monday that a federal judge in Nevada shut down the agency that spent $127 million in 2010 to exterminate more than 5 million animals.

“We want the court to ban its poisons, silence its guns, and pull up its traps because it’s a horrendous misuse of our tax dollars to slaughter the nation’s bears, wolves, coyotes, and myriad other species,” said Wendy Keefover, the group’s director of carnivore protection.

APHIS spokeswoman Carol Bannerman said Tuesday agency officials had not yet reviewed the suit and she had no immediate comment directly on pending litigation, but added that the conservation group had misrepresented the agency’s overall mission.

“Wildlife Services conducts its programs, at local request, and seeks to manage local damage, not to eradicate any native species,” she said Tuesday.

About 38 percent of the agency’s 2010 budget was spent to protect agricultural resources, she said in an email, and the service also chased away more than 20 million animals from areas where they were “causing damage or conflicts.”

“That included making airports safer from wildlife strikes, collecting almost 90,000 samples of 47 diseases carried by wildlife, and protecting 131 different types of threatened or endangered species,” Bannerman said.

The suit filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas said the program primarily benefits a small number of larger agribusiness operations in the West. It says the agency ignores modern science about critical roles of native carnivores in the ecosystem.

“Wildlife Services continues to rely on their environmental analysis from the early 1990s because they want to avoid public scrutiny of their expensive and ineffective program,” Ashley Wilmes, the group’s staff attorney based in Boulder, Colo., said on Tuesday.

Wildlife Services conducted its last programmatic environmental impact statement on the “wildlife-killing” program in 1994, based largely on outdated studies from the 1980s, the lawsuit said. It argues a new EIS is required under the National Environmental Act.

From 2004-10, the agency spent $1 billion to kill nearly 23 million animals, along with thousands of “non-target” species that were killed accidentally, mostly by traps and poisons, the lawsuit said.

The Sacramento Bee reported in a series that began April 28 that the agency had accidentally killed more than 50,000 animals since 2000 that were not causing problems, including federally protected golden and bald eagles and more than 1,000 dogs, including family pets.

The service’s roots date to 1915 when Congress spent $125,000 to kill wolves in hope of boosting beef production for World War II, beginning in Nevada. The government initiated “massive poisoning and trapping campaigns that greatly diminished America’s wildlife” after Congress passed the Animal Damage Control Act in 1931, the lawsuit said.

About half of Wildlife Services’ budget is funded from federal tax dollars and the other half from states, local governments and industry groups, including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, American Sheep Industry Alliance, and American Farm Bureau Federation.

They were among more than 150 organizations that wrote to the chairman of the House and Senate appropriations committees in March urging continued support for Wildlife Services. They said wildlife damage to U.S. livestock, aquaculture, small grains, fruits, vegetables and other agricultural products has been estimated to reach nearly $1 billion annually. That includes $619 million crop losses and $126 million in livestock deaths, they said.

“As a result, WS is an essential program in agriculture production in the United States,” the groups said in the March 27 letters to Sen. Daniel Inoue, D-Hawaii, and Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky.

The lawsuit argues most modern livestock producers lose few sheep or cattle to carnivores when compared to unintended losses due to illness, disease, birthing problems and weather.

“All this killing has no real benefit-even to the massive agricultural industry it purports to support,” Keefover said.

The lawsuit said killing coyotes does not work as a long-term strategy to benefit livestock because new migrants move into the unoccupied territory. It said coyotes benefit populations of sage grouse and other game hens because the coyotes help control populations of foxes, badgers and ravens, which are more likely to prey on sage-grouse eggs and their young.

He found the first piece on Tuesday along a road between a baseball field and park on the edge of Lotus near Coloma, where James W. Marshall first discovered gold in California, at Sutter’s Mill in 1848.

Ward, who has found meteorites in every continent but Antarctica and goes by “AstroBob” on his Web site, said he “instantly knew” it was a rare meteorite known as “CM” — carbonaceous chondrite — based in part on the “fusion crusts from atmospheric entry” on one side of the rock.

“It is one of the oldest things known to man and one of the rarest types of meteorites there is,” he said. “It contains amino acids and organic compounds that are extremely important to science.”

Ward actually has two rocks but suspects they were part of the same small meteorite that broke on impact. Each weighs about 10 grams — about the same as two nickels. He said his only previous finds that rival this one were three lunar meteorites he found years ago in the Middle East.

Experts say the flaming meteor was probably about the size of a minivan when it entered the Earth’s atmosphere with a loud boom and about one-third of the explosive force of the atomic bomb. It was seen from Sacramento, Calif., to Las Vegas and parts of northern Nevada.

An event of that size might happen once a year around the world, said Don Yeomans of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “But most of them occur over the ocean or an uninhabited area, he said.

“Getting to see one is something special,” he said. He added, “most meteors you see in the night’s sky are the size of tiny stones or even grains of sand, and their trail lasts all of a second or two.”

The meteor probably weighed about 154,300 pounds, said Bill Cooke, a specialist in meteors at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. At the time of disintegration, he said, it probably released energy equivalent to a 5-kiloton explosion — the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons.

“You don’t often have kiloton rocks flying over your head,” he said.

The boom, another expert said, was caused by the speed with which the space rock entered the atmosphere. Meteorites enter Earth’s upper atmosphere at somewhere between 22,000 mph and 44,000 mph — faster than the speed of sound, thus creating a sonic boom.

The friction between the rock and the air is so intense that “it doesn’t even burn it up, it vaporizes,” said Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University.

John T. Wasson, a longtime professor and expert in meteorites at UCLA’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, said he understood that in addition to Lotus, another small meteorite had been in nearby Coloma,

Bits of the meteor could be strewn over an area as long as 10 miles, most likely stretching west from Coloma, he said.

“I’m sure more will be found, I’m hoping, including some fairly big pieces,” Wasson said. “The fact that two pieces already have been found means one knows where to look.”

Wasson suspected hundreds of dealers and collectors already have joined the search. He said it was important to recover the meteorites soon because any rain will cause them to degrade, losing their sodium and potassium.

“From my viewpoint as a meteorite researcher,” he said, “I’m hopeful some big pieces are found right away.”

Yeomens confirmed this type of meteorite is one of the oldest, dating to the origin of the solar system 4 to 5 billion years ago. And it’s “actually kind of unusual,” he said.

Yeomens said it’s got two of the most important chemicals that scientists look for: carbon and a form of water. In fact, this type of space rock is likely full of water and would have made a good candidate for the new space company announced Tuesday that plans to mine asteroids, he said.

“And this one landed in their backyard for a lot less than they planned to spend,” he said.

The mini-van sized asteroid wasn’t on NASA’s lengthy list of near Earth objects that they track coming close to the planet, so it took scientists by surprise. “There are millions of objects of that size that we don’t know about,” he said. “They’re too small to image unless they’re right up on top of you.”

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AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this story from Washington, D.C.

An event of that size might happen once a year around the world, said Don Yeomans of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “But most of them occur over the ocean or an uninhabited area, he said.

“Getting to see one is something special,” he said. He added, “most meteors you see in the night’s sky are the size of tiny stones or even grains of sand, and their trail lasts all of a second or two.”

The meteor probably weighed about 154,300 pounds, said Bill Cooke, a specialist in meteors at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. At the time of disintegration, he said, it probably released energy equivalent to a 5-kiloton explosion — the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons.

“You don’t often have kiloton rocks flying over your head,” he said.

The boom, another expert said, was caused by the speed with which the space rock entered the atmosphere. Meteorites enter Earth’s upper atmosphere at somewhere between 22,000 miles per hour and 44,000 miles per hour — faster than the speed of sound, thus creating a sonic boom.

The friction between the rock and the air is so intense that “it doesn’t even burn it up, it vaporizes,” said Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University.

Wasson said one meteorite was found near the town of Coloma, about 35 miles northeast of Sacramento. “I’m sure more will be found, I’m hoping, including some fairly big pieces,” said Wasson.

“The fact that two pieces already have been found means one knows where to look,” he said.

Bits of the meteor could be strewn over an area as long as 10 miles, most likely stretching west from Coloma, where James W. Marshall first discovered gold in California, at Sutter’s Mill in 1848.

Robert Ward, who lives in Arizona and has been hunting and collecting meteorites around the world for more than 20 years, said he found the first piece about 10 a.m. Tuesday in between a baseball field and park on the edge of the town of Lotus.

Ward said he “instantly knew” it was a rare meteorite known as “CM” — carbonaceous chondrite — based in part on the “fusion crusts from atmospheric entry” on one side of the rock.

“It was just, needless to say, a thrilling moment,” he said.

“It is one of the oldest things known to man and one of the rarest types of meteorites there is,” he said. “It contains amino acids and organic compounds that are extremely important to science.”

Yeomens confirmed this type of meteorite is one of the more primitive types of space rocks out there, dating to the origin of the solar system 4 to 5 billion years ago. And it’s “actually kind of unusual,” he said.

Yeomens said it’s got two of the most important chemicals that scientists look for: carbon and a form of water. In fact, this type of space rock is likely full of water and would have made a good candidate for the new space company announced Tuesday that plans to mine asteroids, he said.

“And this one landed in their backyard for a lot less than they planned to spend,” he said.

The mini-van sized asteroid wasn’t on NASA’s lengthy list of near Earth objects that they track coming close to the planet, so it took scientists by surprise. “There are millions of objects of that size that we don’t know about,” he said. “They’re too small to image unless they’re right up on top of you.”

Ward and others tracked the meteorites’ possible location based on estimates by, among others, scientists with the Meteor Group at the Western University of Ontario in Canada that the fireball likely had exploded in the upper atmosphere above California’s Central Valley.

Wasson suspected hundreds of dealers and collectors already have joined the search. He said it was important to recover the meteorites soon because any rain will cause them to degrade, losing their sodium and potassium.

“From my viewpoint as a meteorite researcher,” he said, “I’m hopeful some big pieces are found right away.”

___

AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this story from Washington, D.C.

“In short, we’re moving ahead,” Houghton told more than 100 supporters, who cheered the announcement at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. “We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to hold this historic event in 2012.”

Race officials said they must secure a number of permits to make sure the competition happens. But as of now, tickets for the event are on sale.

The deadly crash at the 2011 races — in which a modified World War II-era racing aircraft climbed, rolled and then abruptly plunged nose-first into spectators — led to calls that officials consider ending the event, the only one of its kind in the country. The NTSB has scheduled a hearing Jan. 10 to examine the safety of air shows and air races in general.

The Reno group’s directors said in a Dec. 28 letter on their website that they are “committed to preserving this unique and historic aviation event” that began four decades ago.

“While we have many challenges to overcome and much work to do, we are optimistic and hopeful that we will again take to the Sierra skies in the near future,” the letter said.

Among other challenges, the board must secure licenses from the Federal Aviation Administration and Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority. They also have to deal with insurance costs and $1.5 million in losses caused by the cancellation of the 2011 event. Two lawsuits have been filed over the crash so far.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said organizers must develop a comprehensive plan each year that includes requirements for pilot and aircraft qualifications, and a detailed course layout.

The 2011 races turned deadly when veteran pilot Jimmy Leeward, 74, of Ocala, Fla., lost control of his World War II-era P-51 Mustang and crashed into the crowd. It was the first time spectators had been killed since the races began 47 years ago in Reno.

Twenty pilots, including Leeward, have died in that time, race officials said. Three pilots died while racing in the 2007 competition, and another was killed during a practice race the next year.

Past deaths have led to on-again-off-again calls for better safety at the races over the years, but it has grown into a major tourist attraction in Reno. Local officials said the races generate $80 million for the local economy during the five-day event held every September.

During the competition, planes fly wingtip-to-wingtip as low as 50 feet off the sagebrush at speeds sometimes surpassing 500 mph. Pilots follow an oval path around pylons, with distances and speeds depending on the class of aircraft.

Reno has the world’s only multi-class air races, with six classes of aircraft competing, said Don Berliner of Alexandria, Va., president of the Society of Air Racing Historians. Air races elsewhere involve only a single class of aircraft, he said.

Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., is among the longtime fans who have said they hope the races will continue in Reno but only if officials can ensure the safety of spectators.