National Park Service plans bison, horse roundups at TRNP in North Dakota; advocate group objects

The National Park Service is conducting roundups of bison and wild horses in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in western North Dakota.

Around 400 bison and all of the park's horses - roughly 200 - will be corralled in the park's north and south units. The animals will be evaluated for health, genetics and population demographics, then 200 bison and up to 15 horses are set to be transferred out of the park to Native American tribes or new homes, according to officials. Some horses will be given GPS collars, enabling the park service to better understand their movement and use of TRNP's environment. Bison roundups begins today.

"Bison roundups are needed to ensure the park's bison population, which is contained within a fenced environment, is appropriately sized. The horse roundup will support the development of a proactive strategy for horse management to create a healthy viewable population at the park that is manageable and minimizes impacts to park resources," the Park Service said in a statement.

The announcement, which came Sept. 27, was met with criticism from Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates (CHWHA), a Dickinson-based group that supports the long-term presence and well-being of the wild horse herd in the park. The Medora City Council, a small nearby tourist town, also passed a resolution opposing the move.

For years, CHWHA, the North Dakota Legislature, the state's congressional delegation and business owners near the park have been at odds with the National Park Service because of the agency's considerations to remove the horses from the park.

Last year, as part of revisions to its livestock plans, the Park Service released an environmental assessment which included three options: no action; remove the horses over the course of a decade; or remove the horses over a two-year period. In April, U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D. told the Associated Press that he had secured a commitment from the Park Service to not clear the horses, though the number that the agency would maintain remained unknown.

Under current management practices from 1978, the Park Service has a herd-size objective of 35-60 horses.

In its federal Environmental Assessment for the now-scrapped review, the Park Service said removing the horses would benefit native wildlife and vegetation. Ancient horses once resided in North America, but around 10,000 years ago, most livestock on the continent went extinct. Modern horses arrived in the Americas around the 16th century along with Europeans.

The horses do have historic roots to the state and among its residents. Both Indigenous tribes and ranchers rode and managed horses which are the recent ancestors of some that now reside in the park. Today, the animals are a popular tourist attraction.

The up to 15 horses that could be removed from the park following the roundup are mares and their offspring. These female horses did not respond to contraception treatment, according to the Park Service. Contraceptives prevent pregnancy.

Acting Park Superintendent Nancy Finley told the Tribune these mares are dominating the herd's reproduction that in turn threatens its genetic diversity. She said doing evaluations on the horses would be the first step toward understanding an ideal horse herd size and which horses to take off of contraception.

Finley said the balance would need to be between a herd that is healthy and genetically diverse, but also does not overcompete with native species.

"Folks need to understand that we can't have an uncontrolled growth of horses," she said.

The 200 bison, she said, need to be removed from the park to prevent overgrazing inside the park's fenced environment.

Chris Kman, CHWHA's president, said she sees the Park Service's actions as a step to reduce the herd size of the horses.

"This herd as we know it will likely die off," she said.

Kman said her group asked the Park Service to try a different contraceptive instead of removing the horses. She said the request was turned down.

"The park does not vet buyers or follow up on the sales of these horses," she said. "We have no guarantee that horses rounded up and sold will not end up going to slaughter."

The Park Service said the process it is set to use for removing the horses by donating them or auctioning them off through the General Services Administration is one it has previously used.

"The adoption process places animals with entities and individuals who agree to provide for their health, well-being and longevity," the agency said in a statement.

Kman expressed concern about the Park Service being able to find a good home for some of the mares set for potential removal because they are older.

The park is still working on finding homes for the horses that might be removed, Finley said, acknowledging that the task can be a challenge when it comes to older horses. She said there is a possibility these horses could stay in the park with added reproductive controls if there are ultimately no takers.

Finley said most of the bison are set to be homed with local tribes, though she said she was not able to specify which tribes would be receiving the animals.

Animal rights groups often criticize the use of helicopters to round up animals, arguing it causes distress, injuries and sometimes death.

Park Service officials said it picked this time of the year, "because animals are in optimal health after a long grazing season and cooler temperatures cause less heat-related stress."

Kman told the Tribune the Park Service told her it plans to use the roundup to hand-inject every mare with the contraceptive GonaCon, which she said gives "the best chance for long-term, if not permanent, sterility," and creates "a nonreproductive herd."

The park office's press release does not say that it plans to use the roundup to inject contraceptives.

Finley said the park is reconsidering its plans regarding GonaCon after talking with horse advocates.

To back up her concerns about GonaCon making it more likely that horses become sterile, Kman pointed to a conversation she had with Dr. Dan Baker, a researcher out of Colorado State University last year on CHWHA's YouTube page. Baker and a team of scientists studied the use of GonaCon and booster shots on park mares over various intervals between 2009 and 2020. These were four-year, two-year, one-year and half-year intervals which were continuously measured in the following years.

"We weren't able to definitively say, 'that some of these mares are not sterile.' We can't say, 'yes' or 'no,'" Baker said. "But what I can tell you is, we have information on the reversibility of each one of these intervals."

These results, he said, indicated that, "Without breaking it down into individual treatment groups, about 40% of the mares reversed." The study wrapped up in 2020. The rates of returns to fertility were lowest for mares with four-year intervals between shots, followed by two-year intervals, half-year intervals, and one-year intervals which had the highest return to fertility, according to the study which was published late last year.

The Park Service began giving GonaCon to mares when they were 8 months old in 2020 and then planned to provide booster shots every two years. In a "frequently asked question" section on its website, the Park Service acknowledged the longer dips in fertility in horses given GonaCon compared to other contraceptives, but stated, "We have no evidence that the population of park horses have been sterilized by GonaCon."

Baker noted there are unknowns about how the treatment is used.

"We just basically say, 'These are the results that we collected under these conditions, if you choose to deviate from the way this experiment was designed, we're not going to take any responsibility for the failure or success of what you're doing,'" he said.

Kman said the plans that the Park Service has "jeopardizes the health and longevity of the this historic wild horse herd." Her group wants around two dozen horses taken off of GonaCon to see if they return to fertility. The group is also pushing for federal protections for the herd.

Finley said some horses would eventually be taken off contraception after evaluations are complete.

Horse operations are scheduled for Oct. 18. The Park Service will use helicopters as part of operations. Roundups will not be open to the public, according to the Park Service, which cited safety and public health as the reasons.

Reach Joey Harris at 701-250-8252 or .

Energy/Environment Reporter