TRNP horses are not what you think

The modern horse was introduced to North America by the Spanish late in the 15th Century and then by other European colonizers. 

Acquiring the horse in the 1740s enabled the Lakota to win the Black Hills. But, in occupied North Dakota the horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park that are believed by some to be the descendants of those belonging to Sitting Bull have reached nuisance level. Because they have no natural predators wild and feral horse herds double in size every four to five years.

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. [National Parks Service proposes plan to remove wild horses from North Dakota National Park]

Now, 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 free-roaming horses and burros either conservative or sustainable?

GonaCon is an immunocontraceptive vaccine that is developed and used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to the Department, when GonaCon is injected into an animal, it induces the body to make antibodies against its own Gonadotropin-releasing hormone. This then causes infertility in the injected animals. While GonaCon has proven to be an effective tool in managing fertility in wild and feral mammals, this includes the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt Park — meaning that some are calling for a study on the vaccine to view the effects it has on the equine population. [Are the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park infertile?]

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.

The study by a graduate biology student at the University of North Dakota said the park horses show little influence of Spanish mustangs and are most closely associated with draft horse breeds, including Shires and Percherons. A ranch Shire-Paint cross stallion performed well, and was considered the park’s dominant stallion for almost a decade. In 1991, an estimated 15% of the herd was traced to the stallion. The herd’s Percheron influence might stem from the HT Ranch, an immense horse ranch in the Little Missouri Badlands headquartered near Amidon, south of the area that became the park. Ranch owner A.C. Huidekoper imported Percherons -- a large, powerful breed -- and a thoroughbred stallion to crossbreed with mares he bought from the Marquis de Mores, who bought them after the ponies were seized from Sitting Bull and his followers when they surrendered at Fort Buford in 1881. Huidekoper, a contemporary of Roosevelt’s, called the cross the “American horse,” which became the prototype of the “Indian pony” that was favored for years by ranchers in the area, prized for its endurance and agility. [Study: National park wild horses are ‘distinctive,’ not closely related to any one breed]

ip image: free-roaming horses browse on private ground in Santa Fe County. Click on it for a better look.