The Trump administration has agreed to a legal settlement that halts a planned multiyear wild horse roundup along the California-Nevada border in the latest setback for the Bureau of Land Management in its ongoing efforts to reduce growing herd sizes.
The settlement signed by the Department of Justice resolves a federal lawsuit filed last year against BLM and former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland by the group Friends of Animals. The group challenged an approved BLM wild horse gather plan that called for removing hundreds of animals at the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area.
Judge Ana Reyes in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — nominated to the bench in 2023 by former President Joe Biden — had already issued a preliminary injunction last year blocking wild horse removals from the herd management areas as part of a BLM plan finalized in May 2024.
BLM agreed as part of the settlement to pay $77,947 to cover the legal costs and attorneys fees for Friends of Animals in the case.
