In a stunning legal win for Wyoming’s “Checkerboard” wild horses, Front Range Equine Rescue and Return to Freedom, along with plaintiffs Meg Frederick and Angelique Rea successfully defeated the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) decision which would have wiped out the Salt Wells Creek and Great Divide Basin wild horse herds, and also take away over 2 million acres of habitat from the herds.
In its decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit held that the BLM violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (“Wild Horse Act”) by failing to consider whether the BLM’s management decision complied with the mandatory statutory goal of the Wild Horse Act to achieve and maintain a “thriving natural ecological balance on the public lands.”
This decision comes as the latest culmination in a multi-year legal battle to protect and save Wyoming’s “Checkerboard” horses and to see them continue to thrive on the public lands as intended by the Wild Horse Act.
The Tenth Circuit entered its crucial judgment which reverses the District Court of Wyoming’s decision that had affirmed the BLM’s actions. The reversal comes before the BLM’s anticipated start of mass helicopter roundups.
Next, the case returns to Wyoming’s District Court for that court to determine next steps.
In the meantime, the BLM’s plan to start rounding up and removing the Wyoming Checkerboard wild horses in August cannot go ahead until the district court decides what the BLM now needs to do to correct its management plan to comply with the Wild Horse Act.