Current:Home > FinanceBeloved wild horses that roam Theodore Roosevelt National Park may be removed. Many oppose the plan-DB Wealth Institute B2 Expert Reviews
Beloved wild horses that roam Theodore Roosevelt National Park may be removed. Many oppose the plan
View Date:2024-12-23 18:47:03
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — The beloved wild horses that roam freely in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park could be removed under a National Park Service proposal that worries advocates who say the horses are a cultural link to the past.
Visitors who drive the scenic park road can often see bands of horses, a symbol of the West and sight that delights tourists. Advocates want to see the horses continue to roam the Badlands, and disagree with park officials who have branded the horses as “livestock.”
The Park Service is revising its livestock plans and writing an environmental assessment to examine the impacts of taking no new action — or to remove the horses altogether.
Removal would entail capturing horses and giving some of them first to tribes, and later auctioning the animals or giving them to other entities. Another approach would include techniques to prevent future reproduction and would allow those horses to live out the rest of their lives in the park.
The horses have allies in government leaders and advocacy groups. One advocate says the horses’ popularity won’t stop park officials from removing them from the landscape of North Dakota’s top tourist attraction.
“At the end of the day, that’s our national park paid for by our tax dollars, and those are our horses. We have a right to say what happens in our park and to the animals that live there,” Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates President Chris Kman told The Associated Press.
Last year, Park Superintendent Angie Richman told The Bismarck Tribune that the park has no law or requirement for the horses to be in the park. Regardless of what decision is ultimately made, the park will have to reduce its roughly 200 horses to 35-60 animals under a 1978 environmental assessment’s population objective, she previously said.
Kman said she would like the park “to use science” to “properly manage the horses,” including a minimum of 150-200 reproductive horses for genetic viability. Impacts of the park’s use of a contraceptive on mares are unclear, she added.
Ousting the horse population “would have a detrimental impact on the park as an ecosystem,” Kman said. The horses are a historical fixture, while the park reintroduced bison and elk, she said.
A couple bands of wild horses were accidentally fenced into the park after it was established in 1947, said Castle McLaughlin, who in the 1980s researched the history and origins of the horses while working as a graduate student for the Park Service in North Dakota.
Park officials in the early years sought to eradicate the horses, shooting them on sight and hiring local cowboys to round them up and remove them, she said. The park even sold horses to a local zoo at one point to be food for large cats.
Around 1970, a new superintendent discovered Roosevelt had written about the presence of wild horses in the Badlands during his time there. Park officials decided to retain the horses as a historic demonstration herd to interpret the open-range ranching era. “However, the Park Service still wasn’t thrilled about them,” McLaughlin told the AP.
“Basically they’re like cultural artifacts almost because they reflect several generations of western North Dakota ranchers and Native people. They were part of those communities,” and might have ties to Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull, she said.
In the 1880s, Theodore Roosevelt hunted and ranched as a young man in the Badlands of what is now western North Dakota. The Western tourist town of Medora is at the gates of the national park that bears his name.
Roosevelt looms large in North Dakota, where a presidential library in his honor is under construction near the park — a legislative push in 2019 that was championed by Republican Gov. Doug Burgum.
Burgum has offered for the state to collaborate with the Park Service to manage the horses. Earlier this year, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled Legislature passed a resolution in support of preserving the horses.
Republican U.S. Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota has included legislation in the U.S. Interior Department’s appropriations bill that he told the AP “would direct them to keep horses in the park in line with what was there at the time that Teddy Roosevelt was out in Medora.”
“Most all of the input we’ve got is that people want to retain horses. We’ve been clear we think (the park) should retain horses,” Hoeven said. He’s pressing the park to keep more than 35-60 horses for genetics reasons.
The senator said he expects the environmental review to be completed soon, which will provide an opportunity for public comment. Richman told the AP the park plans to release the assessment this summer. A timeline for a final decision is unclear.
The environmental review will look at the impact of each of the three proposals in a variety of areas, Maureen McGee-Ballinger, the park’s deputy superintendent, told the AP.
There were thousands of responses during the previous public comment period on the park’s proposals — the vast majority of which opposed “complete livestock removal.”
Kman’s group has been active in gathering support for the horses, including drafting government resolutions and contacting congressional offices, tribal leaders, similar advocacy groups and “pretty much anyone that would listen to me,” she said.
McLaughlin said the park’s effort carries “a stronger possibility that they’ll succeed this time than has ever been the case in the past. I mean, they have never been this determined and publicly open about their intentions, but I’ve also never seen the state fight for the horses like they are now.”
The park’s North Unit, about 70 miles (112.65 kilometers) from Medora, has about nine longhorn cattle. The proposals would affect the longhorns, too, though the horses are the greater concern. Hoeven said his legislation doesn’t address the longhorns. The cattle are managed under a 1970 plan.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park “is one of very few national parks that does have horses, and that sets it apart,” North Dakota Commerce Tourism and Marketing Director Sara Otte Coleman said in January at a press conference with Burgum and lawmakers.
Wild horses also roam in Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia.
The horses’ economic impact on tourism is impossible to delineate, but their popularity is high among media, photographers, travel writers and social media influencers who tout them, Otte Coleman said.
“Removal of the horses really eliminates a feature that our park guests are accustomed to seeing,” she said.
veryGood! (988)
Related
- Artem Chigvintsev Returns to Dancing With the Stars Ballroom Amid Nikki Garcia Divorce
- Official who posted ‘ballot selfie’ in Wisconsin has felony charge dismissed
- See The Crown Recreate Kate Middleton's Sheer Lingerie Look That Caught Prince William's Eye
- Honda, Jeep, and Volvo among 337,000 vehicles recalled: Check car recalls here
- Brianna “Chickenfry” LaPaglia Explains Why She’s Not Removing Tattoo of Ex Zach Bryan’s Lyrics
- Belarus raids apartments of opposition activists as part of sweeping probe called latest crackdown
- 'Height of injustice': New York judge vacates two wrongful murder convictions
- Mark Cuban Leaving Shark Tank After Season 16
- Ariana Grande Shares Dad's Emotional Reaction to Using His Last Name in Wicked Credits
- Sierra Leone’s leader says most behind the weekend attacks are arrested, but few details are given
Ranking
- High-scoring night in NBA: Giannis Antetokounmpo explodes for 59, Victor Wembanyama for 50
- 'Bet', this annual list of slang terms could have some parents saying 'Yeet'
- Panama’s Supreme Court declares 20-year contract for Canadian copper mine unconstitutional
- Rescuers begin pulling out 41 workers trapped in a collapsed tunnel in India for 17 days
- She was found dead while hitchhiking in 1974. An arrest has finally been made.
- Matthew, Brady Tkachuk at their feisty best with grandmother in the stands
- 'The Voice' contestant Tom Nitti leaves Season 24 for 'personal reasons,' will not return
- Official who posted ‘ballot selfie’ in Wisconsin has felony charge dismissed
Recommendation
-
Channing Tatum Drops Shirtless Selfie After Zoë Kravitz Breakup
-
Minnesota Wild fire coach Dean Evason amid disappointing start, hire John Hynes
-
Live updates | Israel and Hamas extend truce, agree to free more hostages and prisoners
-
'The Golden Bachelor' finale: Release date, how to watch Gerry Turner find love in finale
-
The ancient practice of tai chi is more popular than ever. Why?
-
Michigan police chase 12-year-old boy operating stolen forklift
-
Inside the Weird, Wild and Tragically Short Life of Anna Nicole Smith
-
'Family Switch' 2023 film: Cast, trailer and where to watch