Calico Wild Horse Lawsuit Dismissed on Technicality, not Merits; Government Evades Ruling on Illegality of Warehousing Wild Horses in the Midwest
- Monday, May 24, 2010, 16:00
- Breaking News, Horses
- 643 views
Plaintiffs Promise To Continue Fight to Halt BLM Illegal Practices
Washington, D.C. (May 24, 2010) – Today, the Honorable Judge Paul L. Friedman of the U.S. District Court in Washington DC, dismissed on standing and mootness the lawsuit brought against U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) by animal protection organization In Defense of Animals (IDA), wildlife ecologist Craig Downer and children’s author Terri Farley. The Calico wild horse lawsuit has drawn intense public scrutiny to the government’s wild horse program and its routine policy of removing wild horses from their native western range on public lands and stockpiling them in long-term holding facilities in the Midwest, costing taxpayers of tens of millions of dollars annually.
The Calico lawsuit, filed pro bono by the law firm Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney (BIR), sought to stop the roundup of a proposed 2,500 wild horses from the half-million (500,000) acre herd management area complex, which is comprised primarily of publicly-owned lands. In a preliminary ruling, the Court agreed that the the government’s practice of sending wild horses to the Midwest and warehousing them in long-term holding facilities as likely illegal.
Today’s decision did not address the merits of that argument, only the lack of standing by plaintiffs to bring it. The Judge also ruled that the arguments challenging the roundup methods were moot because the roundup had already occurred.
“We remain confident in the merits of our case and look forward to pursuing this legal issue in the near future,” said William J. Spriggs, lead counsel for BIR in this case. “The BLM’s practice of removing horses from the western range and warehousing them in Midwestern holding facilities is flat out illegal, and the judge’s preliminary ruling in this regard was correct.”
The Calico Mountain Complex roundup of 1,922 wild horses is one of the largest roundups in recent years. The BLM removed at least 80-90 percent of the Calico wild horse population, leaving behind an “estimated” 600 horses on the 550,000 acre (or 859 square mile) Complex in northwest Nevada. The roundup ended on February 4, 2010, 500 horses short of its target for removal. The roundup proceeded despite a ruling by Judge Friedman suggesting that the BLM postpone the Calico roundup. To date, 97 horses have died during or after the roundup and more than 50 heavily pregnant mares have spontaneously aborted fetuses due to the stress of the roundup and holding.
Wild horses comprise a small fraction of grazing animals on public lands, where they are outnumbered by livestock nearly 50 to 1. The BLM has recently increased cattle grazing allotments in areas where wild horses are being removed. Currently the BLM manages more than 256 million acres of public lands of which cattle grazing is allowed on 160 million acres; wild horses are only allowed on 26.6 million acres this land, which must be shared with cattle. The Obama Administration plans to remove nearly 12,000 wild horses and burros from public lands by October 2010. There are currently more than 36,000 wild horses warehoused in government holding facilities and only 33,000 wild horses free on the range.
For Immediate Release
Contacts:
William Spriggs, Esq., (202) 452-6051
Eric Kleiman, 717-939-3231
IN DEFENSE OF ANIMALS • 3010 KERNER BLVD. • SAN RAFAEL, CA 94901 • 415-448-0048
10 Comments on “Calico Wild Horse Lawsuit Dismissed on Technicality, not Merits; Government Evades Ruling on Illegality of Warehousing Wild Horses in the Midwest”
Write a Comment
Gravatars are small images that can show your personality. You can get your gravatar for free today!
There are no “free” horses left on public land. Are there ANY government officials who understand this? This issue is beyond sad.
Thank you so much for your tireless pursuit for right action. You are an example for all of us. It is hard sometimes, as a witness, as an activist to understand how and why all of this continues to take place. How do you fight both large corporations and our own government. Both standing side by side and refusing to to do the right thing? Each of our government oversight/regulatory departments, EPA, FDA, SEC= all Interior Departments are overseen and lead by people of industry and special interests, majorly skewing the intent of the office’s purpose. Our government is essentially just another arm of commerce and industry, blocking protective laws and allowing illegal acts. How do you fight this massive mechanism? What is the wedge that can be hammered in between the two, to break the combined power apart? What is it that is not being done to bring the justice system to the rightful side? Or are they also corrupt, siding with the powers at be? What is the piece of the puzzle that we are missing? I do not believe that there is an orchestrated conspiracy but our government is essentially participating in “a death by a thousand cuts”; all of these failings against our oceans and marine life; land and sky and all that inhabit it; our food system which has become an exercise in a grotesque perversion of our humanity and the forsaken creatures forced into it; our obsession with dirty energy, even over human lives. It is said that our government is just a reflection of us, it’s citizens. If this is true, then we are in desperate need of a re-awakening. I know the answer is kindness, it is compassion. To help in whatever way we can, one being at a time. But my G-D there are times that I just would like to have the power, just once, to be able to enact a major event that would right an injustice. Even if it was just once.
The governmental agencies have been subverted by the very powerful special interests and industries they are supposed to regulate and oversee. And we are all suffering for it, including the animals. The Interior Department has taken a lot of heat for its failure to appropriately regulate the oil industry that probably contributed to the oil spill disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. One of Its other sections, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) which I refer to as the Bureau of Land Mismanagement, is catering to the cattle ranchers and gas/oil interests. It is very disappointing that the Obama administration is no better for the animals than the Bush administration was.
Unfortunately, the courts are routinely dismissing animal cases based on “lack of standing.” We desperately need citizen suit provisions in the Animal Welfare Act and other acts relating to the protection of animals. The same thing happened in the Ringling case.
Is Judge Friedman serious? He dismisses the lawsuit based on mootness (that the Calico roundup had already taken place)? The reason it has already taken place is because he refused to issue a requested injunction to stop it last December!!!! What kind of games is this clown of a judge playing anyway?
Isn’t this now a human rights issue?
What standing other than being a concerned citizen do you need to have to be heard in a court of law to appeal for justice?
Shame on those who are upholding, by use of a disempowering technicality, outright cruelty and injustice enacted by the very govt department entrusted by the people to protect our wild horses on our public lands.
It seems to me that this judge has encouraged the blm to move up their gather schedules whenever a lawsuit is filed. By not allowing an injunction he basically said that all the blm has to do is go ahead and round them up in advance of the scheduled date and that will again put it in the “moot” category. The original ruling not to allow the injunction was horribly wrong and the horses have horribly suffered injury, illness, abortion and too, too many deaths
Thank you to the attorneys and their staff for working so hard on this case. I know that the judicial system moves as slowly as geologic time, but why did it take 3 (?)hearings, briefs, and 5 months to come to this ruling. Also, because I haven’t read all of the pleadings, I’m wondering how the Judge came to the conclusion that there is an “overpopulation” issue. Were the AML’s an issue in the case? And, why did we not file an appeal on the ruling on the Preliminary Injunction?
there is nothing honorable about this judge and does not deserve that title. shame on the united states government and shame on all of us for allowing our tax paying dollars going out to pay for their salaries when they do not uphold the law and are not for the rights of humans and animals.no wonder no one takes us seriously and no wonder why their is all the horrible crimes being committed and why not the system is not for the victim it is for the defendant………….
Let’s face it. Our federal government has become completely subverted by the very powerful special interest groups and industries it is supposed to regulate and oversee. We are dealing with crisis after crisis caused by this chronic subversion. The economic collapse showed that agencies such as the SEC and OTS were failing to oversee Wall Street and the financial institutions. The Dept. of Interior was failing to regulate and oversee safety measures of the oil companies and now we’re dealing with the greatest environmental disaster (Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill) in the history of the U.S. The USDA has failed to enforce the Animal Welfare Act but protects the exhibitors and slaughterhouses instead. And now, another division of the Dept. of Interior, the BLM, has worked for cattle ranchers and oil and gas interests to round up what’s left of our wild horses and burros instead of protecting them. We take it to court and the federal courts help the agencies by tossing out the cases on technicalities thereby denying American citizens the right to due process and redress for grievances as well as the denial of equal protection under the law. Let’s face it. We have lost our country. What course of action do we have left? I think we need a massive Animals’ March on Washington!
These SOB’s need this shit dropped in their laps!!! Someone needs to make a movie, to show exactly what is happening, and we need to get some actors, or actresses involved. Who are the people who own horses? Who are the people who make commercials with horses in them? Who are the people that use horses in their ads, in magazines? These are the people we need to target, and we need to let them know what is happening, so they can use their voices and influence to get things done, otherwise people just don’t give a rip, and they go on with their lives like this is something that doesn’t matter. BUT IT WILL!!! What comes around goes around.