
    AMERICAN WILD HORSE PRESERVATION CAMPAIGN; Cloud Foundation; Return to Freedom; Carol Walker; Kimerlee Curyl; Ginger Kathrens, Petitioners-Appellants, v. Sally JEWELL, in her official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior; Neil Kornze, in his official capacity as Bureau of Land Management Acting Director, Respondents-Appellees. Rock Springs Grazing Association; State of Wyoming, Intervenor Respondents-Appellees. Natural Resources and Administrative Law Professors; Mountain States Legal Foundation; Wyoming Stock Growers Association, Amici Curiae.
    No. 15-8033
    United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.
    Filed October 14, 2016
    William Stewart Eubanks, II, Meyer Glitzenstein & Eubanks, Fort Collins, CO, Timothy Kingston, Law Office of Tim Kingston, Cheyenne, WY, Katherine A. Meyer, Washington, DC, for Petitioners-Appellants
    Mark R. Haag, Esq., Thekla Hansen-Young, United States Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, Jason Alan Hill, United States Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, Coby Howell, United States Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, Andrew Christopher Mergen, Esq., United States Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, Nicholas Vassallo, United States Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, for Respondents-Appellees
    Danielle Bettencourt, Constance Brooks, Cody Doig, C.E. Brooks & Associates, Denver, CO, L. Galen West, West Law Office, Rock Springs, WY, for Defendant Intervenor-Appellee Rock Springs Grazing Association
    
      James Kaste, Michael McGrady, Erik Petersen, Office of the Attorney General for the State of Wyoming, Cheyenne, WY, for Defendant Intervenor-Appellee State of Wyoming
    Daniel Harold Lutz, Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown University, Law Center, Washington, DC, for Amicus Curiae Natural Resources and Administrative Law Professsors
    Steven J. Lechner, Esq., Maegan Woita, Mountain States Legal Foundation, Lakewood, CO, for Amici Curiae Mountain States Legal Foundation, Wyoming Stock Growers Association
    Before BRISCOE, McKAY and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.
   ORDER AND JUDGMENT

Mary Beck Briscoe, Circuit Judge

In July 2014, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), acting through a contractor, removed approximately 1,263 wild horses from sections of public and private lands in an area in southwestern Wyoming known as the “Checkerboard.” Shortly thereafter, petitioners American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, The Cloud Foundation, Return to Freedom, Carol Walker, and Kimerlee Curyl filed this action against Sally Jewell, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and Neil Kornze, the acting director of the BLM, seeking review of BLM’s decision to remove wild horses from public land sections of the Checkerboard. Petitioners alleged, in pertinent part, that the removal violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act (Act), 16 U.S.C. §§ 1331-1340, and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. §§ 1701-1787. The district court rejected these claims. Petitioners now appeal.

Exercising jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we conclude, for reasons to be more fully explained in a forthcoming opinion, that the case is not moot, and that, as alleged by petitioners, the BLM violated both the Act and the FLPMA in carrying out the 2014 removal of wild horses from the Checkerboard. Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court.  