The Ninth Circuit has upheld two ten-year federal plans for gathering excess wild horses in Nevada, rejecting a challenge that the Bureau of Land Management was required to set a fixed timetable for completing each removal.
Colvin & Son LLC argued that the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act required BLM to remove every excess animal from the Little Fish Lake and Stone Cabin herd-management areas within a particular period. The panel disagreed. It read the statute’s direction to act “immediately” as requiring removal as promptly as is logistically and reasonably possible, while allowing the agency to account for humane treatment, available resources and the practical limits of gathers.
The court affirmed summary judgment for the Interior Department. It also held that the Act does not compel BLM to write a completion date into a gather plan, leaving the agency’s decade-long framework intact. The ruling is final at the panel level, subject to rehearing or Supreme Court review.
Official Ninth Circuit opinion
