The Western Shoshone Defense Project was established in 1991 by the Western Shoshone National Council to support Mary and Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone grandmothers faced with the confiscation of their livestock.  The Dann sisters have fought the federal government’s land and livestock confiscation practices for 30 years; after the Bureau of Land Management executed its fourth armed round-up and auction of 500 Western Shoshone horses in 2003, the United Nations issued a written condemnation of these land management practices.

Julie Fischel, attorney for the Western Shoshone Defense Project questions whether the real impetus for the U.S. government's raids on the Danns is because the area from which the animals were removed "sits atop one of the largest gold finds in the history of the United States."

WSDP continues to campaign against this illegal confiscation of livestock, as well as planned large-scale nuclear waste dumping at Yucca Mountain, and environmentally-devastating leach gold mining.