The Justice Department has asked a federal judge to deny food and water for feral horses on Cumberland Island National Seashore/NPS file

A request that emergency food and water be provided feral horses at Cumberland Island National Seashore should be denied because the court hasn't yet ruled on motions to dismiss a lawsuit alleging the horses are malnourished and damaging the seashore's environment, Justice Department lawyers wrote in opposing the request.

In addition, the Justice Department questioned whether U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Geraghty has the authority at this point to grant the emergency request.

In late August plaintiffs in the case —Georgia Equine Rescue League Ltd., the Georgia Horse Council Inc., Center for Biological Diversity Southeast Director Will Harlan, Cumberland Island resident Carol Ruckdeschel, and even the horses themselves— filed a request asking Geraghty to order that the horses on the national seashore off the coast of Georgia be provided food and water because they are "suffering unnecessary hardship and death from attempting to survive in the harsh environment" of the seashore.

The request was made as Geraghty continues to mull whether to let a lawsuit proceed against both the federal government and the state of Georgia over the National Park Service's hands-off approach to dealing with the 100 or so horses. The lawsuit argued that the feral horses not only are damaging the seashore's environment and two federally protected species, but are not being humanely managed and should be removed from the seashore.

Read the National Park Service's acknowledgement that the horses are damaging the national seashore's ecosystems.

In filing a response to the request for emergency food and water, the Justice Department last Friday said Geraghty first should rule on motions filed by the federal government in behalf of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland as well as by the state of Georgia to dismiss the lawsuit. In seeking dismissal, the federal government said it has not waived its sovereign immunity from being sued, and that the plaintiffs have failed to show that the Park Service failed to take an action that it was required to take.

The lawsuit claimed that the horses were adversely impacting critical habitat for loggerhead sea turtles, an endangered species, and interferring with nesting females, trampling hatchlings and eggs, and also impacting critical habitat for the piping plover, another protected species. As a result, the Park Service's failure to remove the horses is a violation of the Endangered Species Act, the plaintiffs maintained.

But the Justice Department countered that there was no evidence that Park Service staff at the national seashore had adversely impacted the two species by failing to protect the turtles and plovers from the horses, and that it was "unaware of any cases in which a court has held that a federal agency is liable for a take of one animal perpetrated by another..."

"Because horses are not a 'person' under the [Endangered Species Act], they cannot 'take' loggerhead turtles or piping plovers," DOJ said in their earlier request to dismiss the lawsuit.

Read about the lawsuit plaintiffs brought against Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and the National Park Service in April 2023.

The plaintiffs want the judge to order the Park Service to provide the horses with hay, fresh water, and mineral blocks while the litigation is ongoing.

But the Justice Department maintains Geraghty cannot consider that request before she rules on the motions to dismiss. 

"If the Court finds that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act claims, it cannot" order food and water for the horses, it wrote.