Animal welfare advocates are asking a federal court to prevent the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from gathering wild mustangs from a Nevada range on grounds that the roundup endangers the animals' lives and violates the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act of 1971. The Act protects mustangs and burros from harassment, capture, or death, and places the animals' management under BLM jurisdiction.

Next month, the BLM plans to relocate 2,700 of the estimated 3,095 animals residing on the Calico Complex Herd Management Area in northwest Nevada to long-term holding pens. BLM Spokesman Tom Gorey said the gather is necessary to reduce the herd to a size range resources can support.

In a complaint filed Nov. 23 in Federal District Court in Washington, D.C., international animal welfare agency In Defense of Animals and Nevada ecologist Craig Downer allege that the BLM's use of helicopters during roundups cause trauma, injury, or death to some wild horses. They seek a permanent halt to gathers from the Calico Complex range.

Gorey said the law allows the removal of excess animals when studies show herd growth threatens rangeland ecosystems