by Patrick Springer as published on The Billings Gazette
“I hate to see them go,”
Gunner, the black stallion, and his mare, Perdita, rest on a sunny day at Theodore Roosevelt National Parke – photo by Patrick Springer
MEDORA, N.D. — Tiffany Craigo followed a familiar animal trail that winds through the Badlands, confident that it would take her to a favorite hideout of the wild horses she spends much of her time tracking.
She was curious as always to check on the health of the herd and to look for any new foals, the best part of her self-assigned vigil of the horses that wander the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Her hike on a hot and muggy August morning was overshadowed by the knowledge that some of the young horses, possibly among those she hoped to see on this outing, will soon be removed from the park, taken to keep the herd’s size in check to prevent overgrazing, an operation expected to start Monday, Aug. 12.
The removal of a horse, invariably young, means separation from its band, the familial unit for the horses, and a dramatically different life for a social creature taken from familiar companions and surroundings.
In fact, Craigo plays a key role in a network of volunteers who help to ensure that the horses who are removed from the park find good homes.
She’s one of a number of photographers who closely follow the approximately 150 horses, clustered in 19 bands in the park, chronicling their births, shifting band memberships and other milestones.
The equine drama plays out on Facebook, where the horses have become celebrities on a growing number of fan pages, where hundreds of thousands of viewers from all over the world follow the frolics of foals and the exploits of stallions out to steal a rival’s mares.
Each horse has a name and a pedigree that the interested follower can track on pages including “Wild in North Dakota,” a group that has more than 410,000 followers, and “North Dakota Badlands Horse,” with more than 33,000 followers.
A former librarian, Craigo provides a dedicated pair of eyes for “Wild in North Dakota,” regularly submitting photos and updates of the horses for members — some of whom might just turn out to be willing to take on the responsibility of caring for a wild horse.
“The main thing is to find them homes when they get pulled,” she said, explaining her motivation. “If they see a Facebook post and decide to buy one, that’s awesome. You like to see them get forever homes. My main thing is to just help with that. If we can’t do it, then nobody will do that.”
Craigo, a former Fargo librarian, is in her fifth year of following and photographing the park horses, a volunteer effort that requires her to make long solo hikes, often in remote areas far from roads.
“You’ve got to check on them,” she said. “See if anyone’s gone.”
The Badlands’ harsh weather and unforgiving terrain make life unpredictable, even for sure-footed horses that have adapted to the conditions. Four horses didn’t survive the last winter.
Craigo knows each of the park’s 150 horses by name. She maintains a photo gallery of the horses to enable enthusiastic followers to identify the horses they see while visiting the park.
“They become like family,” said Craigo, who drives from Beach to the park two to four times a week to check the horses. “You care about their well-being.”
Before she started following the horses, Craigo was leery even of trekking alone on established hiking trails; now she routinely hikes alone, sometimes venturing 10 or 12 miles, in all seasons.
“It’s not always easy,” she said, adding that she hiked 10 miles last February to see a new foal. Although now thoroughly familiar with the terrain, the ravines and gullies of the badlands can be a maze. “You can get turned around,” she said.
On this hike, Craigo’s eager to check on horses who like to gather in a valley hidden from the loop road that winds through the park.
“Today’s probably a miserable day for them,” she said, referring to the effect of the sweltering heat and humidity on the horses, whose tails were busy swishing away flies.
Craigo wore a baseball-style cap to shield her from the sun, her hair pulled into a ponytail. The monopod she carried to support the long telephoto zoom lens she uses to photograph the horses doubles as a walking stick — and as protection against rattlesnakes or badgers, which can be aggressive if startled near their dens.
As she descended into the flat where horses like to gather in summer, Craigo told about how her mission started. She had learned that a mare had lost a foal, and felt compelled to go see the horse.
After posting her photos, a mutual friend put her in touch with the driving force behind “Wild in North Dakota,” which is a nonprofit organization as well as a Facebook group. The resulting friendship would alter the course of her life.
A public herd
Eileen Norton’s love affair with the horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park began years ago when she was a student at Dickinson State University.
She was captivated by the Badlands and by the horses, which she began following in 1980. Norton, a Minnesota native, left the college after two years and her career took her around the world.
“Back in that day you didn’t see those horses, they were so elusive,” she said. “It made an impression on my brain.”
Now living in southern California, she’s been traveling regularly to the park for decades to watch the horses. Wild in North Dakota was born after the last major roundup, in 2013, resulted in the removal of 103 horses, all apparently sold at auction to buyers who wanted to train and keep them.
Four years earlier, in 2009, four horses were sold to slaughterhouse buyers, something that still haunts Norton.
“That just broke my heart,” she said. “The park has come a very long way in making sure that doesn’t happen again.”
Now, instead of using helicopters to chase the horses, the park service sends out teams that tranquilize selected horses, drag them with sleds, neutralize the sedative, load them onto a trailer and take them to the park’s corral, where they are picked up by owners who buy them via online auction through the General Services Administration.
Adopting a wild horse is a major undertaking. It requires the patience and ability to gentle the horses and help them adapt to a very different way of life in new surroundings, Norton said.
The transition to a foreign environment is difficult for the horses, especially when they are young and separated from their mothers. “When I bring the horses into my domestic world, problems result. But we have to rise to the occasion.”
Norton spends a lot of time behind the scenes, advising people who have adopted park horses to help make the transition a success.
“They don’t have to be discarded,” she said. “These horses — they’re just so capable of so much.”
The horses are intelligent and friendly, and Norton is working with others to use the horses for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder therapy for veterans.
To help defray costs for horse buyers, Wild in North Dakota raises money by selling T-shirts and calendars that depict the horses.
The following on the “Wild in North Dakota” Facebook page has mushroomed in recent years, and other groups have formed, because people feel connected to the horses and want to keep up with their stories, Norton said.
“I keep it all about the horses,” and avoid entering into controversies, including management of the park herd, she said. “This is a public herd with a lot of followers.”
Low-stress removals
Ideally, horses wouldn’t have to be removed from the park. That would require an effective birth-control program, a possibility the park has been exploring for years through research.
So far, the findings indicate that a contraceptive administered by dart can be effective in preventing horse pregnancies — if booster doses are administered. Researchers are working on refining the schedule for follow-up immunizations to keep the contraceptive active and effective.
If deemed workable, the contraception program could become part of a new management plan for the horse herd. The current management plan was written 41 years ago, but a new plan is likely several years away, McCann said.
“The important thing is we do it correctly,” he said, referring to the adoption of a new management plan. “It will be a public process when it happens. The sooner we start something, the better.”
McCann expects to remove about 14 horses this time, and the horses should be ready for auction later this month.
“The 14 is based on the number that are at least four months of age that are out there and not more than a year or two of age,” the age range deemed most suitable for adoption.
Veterinarians were consulted to determine the minimum age of the horse, and the experts said those at least four months old are suitable, McCann said. Some horse advocates, however, believe that is too young to be separated from their mothers and the other horses in their band.
“Young horses are easier to place,” he said. “We’ve been really trying to set up an environment that facilitates success.”
So far, since the suspension of the large roundups, almost 100 horses removed from the park have found new homes, with help through an informal partnership with Wild in North Dakota and North Dakota Badlands Horse, also a nonprofit organization, he added.
McCann, who has a doctorate degree and is involved in the park’s wildlife research projects, knows that any decision he makes about the horses will be controversial, especially now that the horses have become Facebook celebrities with followers around the world.
“It’s a hot-button issue for people,” he said. “Social media takes it globally. We get people from Iceland weighing in.”
‘They know how to survive’
Once down on the sheltered flats, Tiffany Craigo is delighted to see a bachelor stallion she hadn’t seen for weeks was OK, grazing near a rounded bare butte a few hundred yards away from a gathering of seven bands.
Also nearby, a young stallion and mare and her colt, which the stallion had adopted, were resting contentedly.
“They’re like teenagers,” Craigo said. “They’re a cute couple.”
The seven bands that had bunched together on top of the butte, roughly 70 horses, or almost half of the park herd, apparently were drawn to the area by the sweat clover and breeze the higher elevation offered, good for cooling off and keeping the biting flies away.
“They know where to go,” she said. “They’ve got their routine. They live in a very harsh environment, but they know how to survive.”
The following day was even more eventful. She discovered the birth of a new foal, which she posted on her own Facebook page, “Dakota Grown Photos” and reposted in “Wild in North Dakota.” Soon, the internet was abuzz with the joyful news.
Categories: Horse News, The Force of the Horse, Uncategorized, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Why are they doing this ? Food, torture, glue, in God’s name let them roam and be free!
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let them roam free that is what they are meant to do terrible story
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More removals? It sounds as though too many have already been removed>
Wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park have mixed ancestry
AUGUST 2018
by Public Library of Science
Feral horses living in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the Badlands of North Dakota likely had multiple origins, but have since become inbred, according to Igor Ovchinnikov of the University of North Dakota, and colleagues, in a study published August 1 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
The analysis also shows that the herd is highly inbred and has less genetic diversity than other feral horse herds and domesticated breeds.
While the existing genetic data available for horses are insufficient to determine the exact origins of the horses roaming Theodore Roosevelt National Park, the findings can be used for future herd management strategies. Regardless of the ancestry of lineages, the researchers suggest that future herd management should focus on adding new members to the group to improve the genetic health of the herd.
Maintenance of the herd as a breeding population will require adaptive management efforts focused on improving genetic diversity.”
https://phys.org/news/2018-08-wild-horses-theodore-roosevelt-national.html
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This is an in-dept, scientific explanation which basically illustrates a very real and present danger to ALL of America’s Wild Horses & Burros. One doesn’t have to be an expert in genetics to understand the problem
Genetic diversity and origin of the feral horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park
US National Library of Medicine
National Institutes of Health
The equine herds living in the U.S. national parks represent a model that can be used to study the historic value as well as the genetic diversity and health of these animals and to establish the conservation strategy for the future.
Our research has provided new information relevant to stewardship of the herd of feral horses at TRNP. Estimates of mitochondrial and nuclear genetic diversity lower than that observed for most feral and domestic breeds are cause for concern
In keeping with the park’s forage allocation model [48] a small (<90 individuals) genetically augmented herd could be maintained with higher genetic diversity than observed in the current closed herd. If the herd is to be maintained as a breeding population, then adaptive management, informed by ongoing genetic monitoring, should be conducted to ensure genetic integration at the herd and individual level.
However, regardless of ancestry or conservation value of lineages, both of which remain unknown, immediate management efforts should focus on improving the genetic health of the herd.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6070244/
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NATIONAL PARK SERVICE..on the attack
MEDIA RELEASE Point Reyes National Seashore Proposes to Kill Native Elk and Keep Cows
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 8, 2019
CONTACT: Laura Cunningham, Western Watersheds Project, lcunningham@westernwatersheds.org 775-513-1280
POINT REYES, Calif. – Today, the National Park Service released its draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) to amend the General Management Plan for the popular Bay Area parks Point Reyes National Seashore and the northern portion of Golden Gate National Recreation Area. DESPITE public opposition to the ongoing agricultural impacts to wildlife and waterways, the draft EIS indicates the agency will manage beef and dairy cows as “integral” to the parks. This includes lethally removing any of the native tule elk that interferes with ranching operations.
“The idea that the park service is going to kill native wildlife for the sake of ranches in a National Park unit is shocking,” said Laura Cunningham, California director of Western Watersheds Project. “The parks should be managed for native wildlife, not the commercial cattle industry.”
The park service will hold a 45-day comment period and the public is encouraged to comment about their park lands and how they will be managed for the next several decades.
https://www.westernwatersheds.org/2019/08/media-release-point-reyes-national-seashore-proposes-to-kill-native-elk-and-keep-cows/
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Leave the remaining wild ones free to roam. This is way too many being removed for a viable population. America’s free roaming wild horses deserve the remain free and wild.
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