Bad News: Court Green Lights Wyoming Wild Horse Wipeout
The following article is a call to action from the American Wild Horse Preservation.
We have some very bad news to deliver today. We just received word that the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied our motion for an injunction to block the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from rounding up more than 800 wild horses in Wyoming.
Despite the herculean efforts of our attorneys and coalition partners, we were not able to stop the roundup. However, it’s important to remember that the Court of Appeals simply issued a one sentence cursory and did not address any of the BLM’s blatant legal violations. While disappointing, the court’s ruling is not unexpected, because the standards for obtaining an emergency injunction are extremely high and the cards are generally stacked against us
So many of you have pitched in to support our efforts to defend Wyoming’s wild horses in federal court and we can assure you that the merits of our case remain very strong. While we cannot stop the roundup, we can pursue our lawsuit with the goal of establishing a precedent that will prevent BLM from running roughshod over public opinion and federal law in the future and with the hope of obtaining some relief for the Wyoming wild horses, including possibly forcing BLM to return to the range some of the horses captured during the roundup.
Meanwhile, we need to protest this assault on Wyoming’s wild horses loud and clear. Here are two things that you can do right now:
1. Tweet: @SecretaryJewell Public lands 4 all Americans: Stop WY wild horse wipeout. #justice4mustangs
Public lands 4 all Americans: Stop WY wild horse wipeout. #justice4mustangs
2. Post this message below (just by copying and pasting) on the Interior Department’s Facebook page:
Manage public lands for all Americans. Stop the Wyoming wild horse wipeout. #justice4mustangs
Tomorrow we’ll send another email asking you to call the Interior Department.
These things take just moments of your time, but together we can create a lasting impression on the minds of policy makers that citizens from all walks of life are taking a stand against the injustice our wild horses and burros are suffering at the hands of the ranchers and the BLM.
Let’s do this,
– The AWHPC Team