Judge Gives Wild Horses a Reprieve

The small herd of wild horses that roams the hilly grassland on Santa Cruz Island has gotten a reprieve that guarantees the horses will likely stay there for several months.

U. S. District Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw notified an animal rights group fighting to save the horses of her ruling late Monday.

The order grants the group’s request for a preliminary injunction that will prevent the National Park Service from removing the nonnative horses.

“At least this gives us some time,” said Santa Barbara attorney James R. Nichols Jr., who represents the Foundation for Horses and Other Animals.

The foundation opposes plans by the park service to rid the island of the horses as part of an effort to restore native habitat. Part of that plan also included rounding up wild sheep on the island, shipping them to the mainland and giving them to farmers and others who wish to adopt the animals, officials said.

Park officials believe that the horses are a potential liability and that their grazing damages native plants on the island. But activists with the foundation said that in all the time that the horses have been on the island, no one has been hurt.

“Frankly, that argument is a red herring,” Nichols said. “But the foundation was willing to pay for a liability policy.”

Park service officials are still looking into what the order will mean in the long term, said Carol Spears, spokeswoman for Channel Islands National Park.

Ultimately, the judge will have to rule on whether the park service will be allowed to take the horses from the island and put them up for adoption.

In the meantime, activists with the foundation said they plan to lobby Rep. Walter Capps (D-Santa Barbara) to see if he would amend the laws governing the park to allow for the herd, Nichols said.