Theodore Roosevelt National Park's plan to remove wild horses from the park has long been controversial. Back in April, park officials halted plans to relocate as many as 200 horses from the park after a petition that amassed 61,000 signatures in oppostion to the move gained political traction. The horses are non-native, but have roamed western North Dakota for hundreds of years. They were fenced in when Theodore Roosevelt National Park was created, and the park has managed them ever since.
The park wants to move the horses to better protect animals native to that ecosystem, while opponents argue the horses are part of the park's history and character and should stay.
On October 5, the park plans to resume the operation, this time removing only 15 horses from the park while rounding up the entire 200-strong herd. Helicopters will be used to slowly move the herd into the park's south corrals. The herd will be given health screenings and some individuals will be fitted with GPS collars to monitor range throughout the park. The removal is part of a larger wildlife managing program, with 200 bison also being rounded up to be found homes outside the park.
The 15 horses slated for removal include mares that haven't responded to a contraceptive the park adminiters to limit breeding, and their offspring. The horses "will be proposed for donation to Tribes, nonprofits, or auctioned through the General Services Administration, using a process the park has previously used," according to park officials. "The adoption process places animals with entities and individuals who agree to provide for their health, well-being, and longevity."
Even this reduced plan to remove horses is facing bitter opposition, however.
Another petition is circulating to stop the removal of the 15 horses. The city council of Medora, North Dakota, unanimously passed a resolution stating their objection to the horse's removal last week.
Park officials have been working on a management plan for the horses since 2021.
Back in 2023 we spoke with Theodore Roosevelt National Park Superintendent Angie Richman, who explained that it's difficult to fully understand the impact the horses have on the park's ecosystem, "the more hoofed animals you have on the landscape, the more pressure that it puts on the landscape, and by addressing the non-native species it allows a little bit more resiliency for the native animals in the park," she said.
Further, "it's not just the flexibility for our native animals to be a little bit more resilient to things like wildfire, drought, climate change, but the management of horses and cattle has taken an increasing amount of our staff time and park resources as well, which compromises our ability to prioritize our natural ecosystem," she said.
The situation is similar to that of Cumberland Island National Seashore which also has a population of non-native feral horses, but that park is not considering the horses for removal.
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Comments
There's an argument to be made that the horse was only temporarily extinct in the Americas and should be considered a reintroduced species, not an invasive one.
This is a truly disapointing and a very one sided write up. Intentionally spreading misinformation and weaponizing the news and social media is a HUGE problem right now. We use to be able to trust our media sources to get to the bottom of an issue and expose the truth to the public, but apparently telling the truth isn't as profitable as pushing lies for people today.
For starters, you do not have to look all that hard to find that horses are native to our country. You can even Google it to find the truth for pete's sake!? In fact, the US is the birthplace of the horse, and without our great country there would be NO horses in the world today. I am not sure how many times that you reference the TRNP wild horses as "non-native", but for the media to say it even once is a disgrace and a huge let down. Do you people even check your sources anymore...? Seriously, every single museum with horse exhibits will tell you that without a doubt wild horses are indigenously native to our country. Just ask Ross MacPhee our country's leading expert on the history of the horse and head curator and expert mammologist at the American Museum of Natural History. MacPhee has been fighting against the misinformation being spread about our wild horses in biased, shoddy write ups such as this for years now. If our country's leading expert on the history of the horse tells you that the horses are native, how exactly do you argue that point with someone like that...? The answer is, you can't, and not come out sounding like a complete idiot! So how you can justify calling TRNP wild horses as non native is completely irresponsible and bad reporting. IF you had looked into this topic even just a little bit you would have known that Nat Geo is doing a series on TRNP wild horses as being descendants of the missing link horses in our American horse history. Texas A & M came out and did an in depth genetic study of these horses and was able to add 3 unique gene sequences to the international GenBank just from this one small herd. These wild horses are unique from every other horse in the world, and one of the rare gene sequences proves that wild horses have ALWAYS existed in this country ever since they first appeared here millions and millions of years ago. Being a native species, wild horses are actually ecologically beneficial to their environment. Comparing this native species to invasive cattle, that is known for damaging our public lands and responsible for over half of our western lands not passing minimum health standards according to Bureau of Land Management reports, is like comparing them to a giraffe. Cattle are responsible for a lot of our green house gas concerns from all the methane they pass while being on lands invasive and not suited to them. Cattle orginated and are shited to European marshy terriitories. Where as wild horses do not pose a problem to greenhouse gasses and global warming what so ever.
Bottom line, wild horses are native to our country so please check your facts next time you decide to do a report on them, we sincerely hope to see some improvements and better factual reporting.
Tirza, the follks at Texas A&M said that the horses at Theodore Roosevelt are indeed feral -- non-native -- and lack genetic diversity. Here's a snippet from their release on genetic studies of the horses:
Although their genes may have outgrown the legend, the Teddy Roosevelt horses are still a piece of living history. In fact, feral horses have existed in the park area since the mid-1800s.
However, efforts to preserve feral horses didn’t begin until the 1950s. These preservation efforts still continue today and researchers at Texas A&M such as Cothran are proudly a part of this movement.
Genetic diversity: Going, going, gone?
In addition to exploring the genetic history of the Teddy Roosevelt horses, Cothran’s study also analyzed the horses’ genetic diversity. Genetic diversity refers to the amount of genetic characteristics in a species’ genetic makeup that differs among individuals. Species with more genetic characteristics, or genetic diversity, tend to survive and thrive in their environment better than species with less genetic diversity.
Unfortunately, Cothran and his team of researchers found that the Teddy Roosevelt horses’ genetic diversity was limited.
“Limited genetic diversity means that all of the individuals within the population are very similar to each other,” Cothran said. “This can lead to inbreeding depression, which basically means that a large proportion of the population is carrying deleterious recessive variants of genes, or genes that will decrease the animal’s ability to survive in its environment.”
https://vetmed.tamu.edu/news/internal-news/texas-am-researchers-help-pre...
A little Fact Checking. Cattle are an invasive species - brought to North America by Europeans. Horses are a native species - evolved in North America. Cattle are proven to degrade the environment: 1) their digestive system by-product is methane, 2) Their foraging mechanism destroys the plants they consume, 3) beef as a source of human protein tops the list of protein sources as the largest contributor to global warming. In comparison Horses are shown to : 1) be beneficial climate engineers due to the foraging mechanism contributes to rangeland health, eliminates wildfire fuel sources, 2) contribute very little methane, and 3) are not sourced as a human protein source in this country. Who fed you the one-sided misinformation you publish here? The Park Service I suppose. Clearly you did little of your own research. (This comment was edited to remove gratuitous comments.--Ed.)
Anonymous, the horses at Theodore Roosevelt NP are not natives. Like cattle, their ancestry dates to Europeans arriving in the New World with them.
I just have 1 question. So all these horse round ups sound like there being done so that farmer john has more grazing land because he has to many cows and doesn't want to supplement them. That being said horses r being pushed out because of this. Cows arenot native. They've been hauled in and dropped. I road many miles all thru Nevada and see these cows. There flat isn't anything to eat. I've wandered how they survive. This isnt because wild horses have eatin everything the cows have. I say if the ranchers or farmers can't sustain there cattle on there acreage maybe it's time they thin there hoods and quit expecting the goverment to supplement them. Leave this horses be. H3wr
"the management of horses and cattle has taken an increasing amount of our staff time and park resources as well, which compromises our ability to prioritize our natural ecosystem," she said."
But the horses are not managed as such. They are left to manage themselves.
We have concerns about mares being hand injected with GonaCon. This is likely to = the mares never regaining fertility, this must be why the hand injections. This will have a huge, negative impact on the genetics of the herd.
There is talk about bringing in other genetics in the future due to the herd's small size. Perhaps the Nakota horse. However, surely it's more important for these particular horses to be allowed to breed as long as certain criteria fit.