The controversial Triple B mustang roundup began on Wednesday, July 20, in Nevada according to The Horse.

The Bureau of Land Management had planned to begin the roundup of approximately 1,730 wild mustangs that roam the Triple B, Maverick-Medicine and Antelope Valley Herd Management Areas, and the Cherry Springs Wild Horse Territory in Nevada on July 7.

But before the roundup could begin, The Cloud Foundation, a Colorado-based wild horse advocacy group, filed a complaint in Nevada’s U.S. District Court claiming that the BLM failed to prove that the horses threaten the ecological balance in the areas on which they roam.

On July 15, U.S. District Court Judge Howard McKibben denied the motion for a temporary restraining order on the roundup, but later in the 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.

But upon review, the judicial panel, which included Paez, decided to allow the roundup to proceed on the grounds that the plaintiffs failed to show that the roundup would cause irreparable harm, or that the injunction would be in the public interest. 

The Bureau of Land Management initiated the roundup as a form of population control, saying that as of Feb. 28, 2011, “The estimated current free-roaming population exceeds by nearly 12,000 the number that the BLM has determined can exist in balance with other public rangeland resources and uses. The appropriate management level is approximately 26,600.”

While the BLM puts the mustangs up for adoption after they are rounded up, it states that it does not sell to slaughterhouses or “killer buyers.”