But, today in an era when western states are scrambling to preserve habitat for bison, wapiti, bighorn sheep, pronghorns, deer, the threatened Greater sage grouse and all the other wildlife at risk to the Republican Party how is running nurseries for introduced species like wild horses and burros either conservative or sustainable? Because they have no natural predators wild and feral horse herds double in size every four to five years. “You don’t have wild horses anymore. You have their bodies, but they are … domesticated,” said one researcher. Ironic that in a country that exports more weapons of mass destruction than all others combined and relentlessly hunts nearly anything that moves Equus ferus is still seen as a pet.
As of October, 2022 the US Bureau of Land Management has removed over 19,000 horses and burros from public land and holds over 64,000 in confinement although the data clearly show domestic livestock are far more destructive.
Democracy is messy business and it takes political courage to just say no to livestock on public lands and pass legislation that compensates for depredation but bravery is a trait conspicuously absent in Congress right now.
In Theodore Roosevelt National Park horses believed by some to be the descendants of those belonging to Sitting Bull have reached nuisance level.
The National Park Service says there is no legal basis to keep horses and longhorn cattle that roam freely in the North and South Units of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Officials during a Thursday night virtual public meeting that included about 160 participants also said there is no ecosystem benefit to keeping livestock in the western North Dakota park. The first alternative would reduce the horse herd from 186 animals to 35-60. The second alternative, which would remove all livestock within two years, would include live capture of the horses; American Indian tribes would be given first opportunity to receive them. The third alternative involves capturing the horses, giving tribes first opportunity to purchase them, implanting contraception to prevent future breeding, and allowing the reduced herd of non-reproductive horses to live out their lives in the park. [Park officials: No legal or ecosystem basis to keep horses, cattle at Teddy Roosevelt]David Treuer was born of a Holocaust survivor and Ojibwe mother. He wrote in The Atlantic that he believes that most land held in America's national parks should be remanded to Indigenous peoples but it's my view that the most of the land held in the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service should also be part of that trust.
ip image: mustangs range freely on a Kewa Nation pasture.
Yesterday, the National Park Service held a virtual meeting about the removal of the wild horses that call the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Here's how it went. https://t.co/KlBaXsABXW
— American Wild Horse Campaign (@FreeWildHorses) January 13, 2023
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