By MATTHEW DALY (AP) – 4 hours ago

WASHINGTON — A lawyer for an animal protection group is asking a federal judge to block a plan to use helicopters to round up about 2,500 wild horses to remove them from a Nevada range.

The mustang roundup planned for Dec. 28 would be one of the largest in Nevada in recent years. Federal officials plan to use helicopters to force the horses into holding pens before sending them by trailer to pastures in the Midwest and East. The group In Defense of Animals argued against the plan in court Wednesday.

The event is part of the Bureau of Land Management's overall strategy to remove thousands of mustangs from public lands around the West to protect wild horse herds and the rangelands that support them. The bureau estimates about half of the nearly 37,000 wild mustangs live in Nevada.