The Bureau of Land Management will cancel a plan to round up more than 100 wild horses near Challis after a lawsuit filed by an animal rights group.
The Colorado-based Friends of Animals filed suit against BLM in November, alleging they took no public comment for their plan to remove dozens of wild horses and give some of the mares birth control.
“This is probably one of the most glaring defects we’ve seen in the last couple of years in which [BLM] issued the decision without engaging any public participation whatsoever and we just felt we had to call them out on that," says Michael Harris, the head environmental lawyer for the group.
His organization dropped its suit after BLM recently withdrew its plan.
"We believed it was more efficient and definitely a better use of taxpayer dollars to take the decision back," say sgency spokeswoman Heather Tiel-Nelson.
She notes there are about 350 horses in the Challis herd management area right now – about 100 more than she says is sustainable.
"We've got to come up with a better method of fertility control."
There’s no timetable for when BLM will conduct another roundup, though Tiel-Nelson says it’ll probably be within the next few years.
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