A federal judge in Nevada has granted a temporary restraining order to block the sale of unbranded horses at a slaughter auction in rural Nevada.
Wild horses on open land
Activists sued to stop the sale of unbranded horses that were captured on the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone reservation alleging that unbranded were probably federally protected wild horses.
"If those horses don't have a brand, you can't sell them" were the words that stopped the auction of 486 horses rounded up for sale by a Native American reservation. Animal rights activists had convinced the judge to grant the restraining order.
The auction went on as scheduled with 200 branded horses being sold with at least 150 of them going to kill buyers who would ship the horses to Mexico. Animal rights activists watched to make sure no unbranded horses were among those sold.
Activists sued to stop the sale of the unbranded horses that were captured on the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone reservation alleging that unbranded horses in the group were probably federally protected wild horses from the nearby Bureau of Land Management's Little Owyhee Herd Management area.
Advocates applauded the judge's action with Suzanne Roy, director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign thanking the judge for the federal court decision.