America’s Wild Horse Advocates try to halt the BLM’s herd management program

A Las Vegas federal judge has refused to stop the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from rounding up wild horses and burros Tuesday in the Spring Mountains west of Las Vegas.
  
America’s Wild Horse Advocates filed an emergency motion earlier this week and argued that the federal government’s environmental assessment report, which led to the gathering, was “flawed, inaccurate, and lacks a solid grounding in legitimate rangeland science.”

U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson ruled that the advocates’ filing failed to include scientific or technical knowledge that supported their allegations.

Dawson denied the motion that would have prohibited the BLM from beginning to round up the animals on Jan 2. He scheduled a hearing Jan. 30 to allow both sides to voice their arguments.
  
Billie Young, president of the Advocates organization, said the hearing will be too late.
  
“I’m extremely disappointed; I have this pit in the bottom of my stomach,” she said. “Even though we have a hearing date at the end of January, all the horses will already be gone.”
  
The roundup is part of the BLM’s Spring Mountains herd management plan. The agency plans to use wranglers to haul in 266 wild horses and 799 burros. That amounts to 95 percent of the animals that graze the region, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Saturday.
  
Kirsten Cannon, spokeswoman for the BLM, said the appropriate management level is 147 horses and 146 burros. To maintain a healthy ecosystem, about 25 percent of the range can be used; in some areas overcrowded by horses and burros, 80 percent of the range is used, she said.
  
“The primary vegetation the horses would eat is gone,” Cannon said. “During the years, we’ve seen horses go from a healthy body class to a not-as-healthy body class because there isn’t quite enough food for them.”
  
Healthy burros and horses under the age of 5 will be put up for adoption. Animals that are older than 10 years will be sent to a long-term holding facility or a sanctuary.
  
Wild animal advocates say that BLM mismanagement of the animals has led to the gatherings.
  
“Part of the reason we wanted to bring so much attention to this is that the lack of proper management has caused much of the overpopulation,” Young said. “Until they put together proper plans for the long term, this should not be allowed. It’s so easy for the BLM to remove and remove and remove