The contested Triple B mustang gather in Nevada got under way Wednesday (July 20) after a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judicial panel declined to grant a group of wild horse advocates’ injunction to stop it.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was to begin gathering approximately 1,726 animals collectively from the Triple B, Maverick-Medicine, and Antelope Valley Herd Management Areas (HMAs) and the Cherry Springs Wild Horse Territory, in Nevada on July 7.

The gather was postponed after the a Colorado-based wild horse advocacy group, The Cloud Foundation, along with ecologist Craig Downer and Lorna Moffat, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court in Nevada claiming the BLM failed to demonstrate that the animals threaten the thriving natural ecological balance of the ranges or that the mustangs are responsible for range areas that might exhibit some use-related impact.

On July 15 U.S. District Court Judge Howard McKibben declined to prevent the gather. Immediately after McKibben ruled on the roundup, attorney Rachel Fazio (who represents the plaintiffs in the case) appealed McKibben’s ruling. That same day, Judge Richard Paez of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary injunction preventing the gather until the court could review the appeal