Wild horses get reprieve from roundup

CARSON CITY -- The Bureau of Land Management has postponed a planned roundup of thousands of wild horses in Nevada because of a lawsuit and to allow time for appeals of its decision.

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley in Reno confirmed Wednesday that the roundup, set to begin Dec. 7, has been delayed until Dec. 28.

Worley said the agency still will issue a formal decision Tuesday on its plan to round up 2,700 horses from a range 100 miles north of Reno. It is part of a plan to remove more than 30,000 horses from federal lands in the West to deal with soaring numbers of the animals and the growing costs to manage them.

The group In Defense of Animals filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the action and challenging the use of helicopters in roundups.

The lawsuit also argued that the use of helicopters in roundups is illegal because they "traumatize, injure and kill" some of the animals.

"We welcome this moratorium on the capture and inhumane treatment of the Calico horses," said William Spriggs, an attorney representing plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who include Craig Downer, a renowned wildlife ecologist.

"We are confident that the court will agree that America's wild horses are protected by law from BLM's plan to indiscriminately chase and stampede them into corrals for indeterminate warehousing away from their established habitat," Spriggs said.