A federal judge has temporarily halted the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) gather of wild horses from Nevada’s Pine Nut Mountains Herd Management Area.

The Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971 federally protects wild horses and burros and places them under the BLM’s jurisdiction. The BLM website indicates that more than 20,000 wild horses and burros resided in Nevada during the last fiscal year; the BLM says Nevada’s maximum management level is about 12,700. Documents from the U.S. District Court District of Nevada indicate that the BLM determined that the appropriate herd management level for the Pine Nut range is between 119 and 179 horses.

In December 2014 the BLM announced on its website that it planned to gather approximately 200 horses from the Pine Nut herd. Of those, about 132 horses would be returned to the range, including 66 mares treated with the birth control vaccine porcine zona pellucida (PZP), the statement said.

The gather was to begin around Feb. 20