North Dakota
North Dakota legislative resolution marks first step toward federal protection for wild horses
MEDORA, N.D. — A resolution passed by the North Dakota Legislature is the first step in seeking federal protection to ensure the future of the wild horse herd at
Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Legislators this week overwhelmingly
passed
Senate Concurrent Resolution 4006,
which urges Congress to pass legislation protecting the herd.
“It’s important because it puts North Dakota on record saying they’re important and should have full protection,” said Chris Kman, president of Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates of Dickinson, a leading proponent for keeping a viable herd.
Park officials proposed eliminating the wild horses from the park in a recent environmental review and are injecting the mares with birth control to prevent reproduction in the herd.
The resolution notes “significant concerns regarding the management of the wild horse herd by Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the long-term health and preservation of the herd” and urges Congress to enact legislation “establishing federal protections for the wild horses to ensure the herd’s long-term health and preservation.”
A herd of about 200 wild horses, grouped in separate bands, has roamed the south unit since before Theodore Roosevelt National Park was established in 1947. A study found
the ancestry of the herd likely traces back to the open-range ranching era of the 1880s,
when Roosevelt ranched in the Badlands.
Following public outcry,
park officials in April 2024 abandoned an environmental review
— which Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., flatly called a horse-removal process — and agreed to maintain a herd of horses but said they would reduce the size of the herd.
Six months later, in October 2024,
the park conducted a helicopter roundup of the horses.
During the roundup, all mature mares were injected with GonaCon, a birth-control drug the park has used aggressively since 2009.
Most of the mares have received multiple injections of the drug, which Colorado State University researchers found to be highly effective after two doses — and determined that
19 of 24 mares failed to regain fertility after two doses.
Patrick Springer / The Forum
As a result of the park’s use of GonaCon, horse advocates fear the park is deliberately creating a non-reproductive herd. Kman said Bruce McCann, the park’s chief of natural resources, told her late last year that the park is using GonaCon with the intent of creating a sterile herd.
The park has not responded to The Forum’s request for comment on the assertion that it is deliberately working to sterilize the herd.
Rangers were out darting mares in the park on Thursday, March 27. Park records show every mare was dosed with GonaCon last year, Kman said.
“GonaCon is not meant to be used every year, so what are they doing?” she said. “Eradicating the herd.”
Now that legislators have sent a clear message to Congress, Kman said she will ask the North Dakota congressional delegation to press the National Park Service to impose a moratorium on any further horse removals and the use of birth-control drugs.
“Federal legislation takes a long time, as you could imagine,” and likely would take several years to pass, if successful, she said.
Hoeven is preparing to take legislative action to protect the horses, spokesperson Alex Finken said.
“Last year, Senator Hoeven secured a commitment from the National Park Service to maintain wild horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and he is working to introduce legislation to ensure the NPS maintains a herd of free-roaming horses on a permanent basis,” Finken said.
The herd, which the State Historical Society of North Dakota has said is historically significant, is threatened by the park’s usage of birth control, Kman said.
“The use of GonaCon absolutely has to stop,” she said. Births in the horse herd have dropped sharply, with 10 foals born last year, two of which died. There were more than 40 births in 2017, a number Kman said was too high. A healthy balance must be struck to maintain the herd’s genetic viability, she said.
As a result of the removal of young horses and the aggressive use of birth control, the horse herd is rapidly aging, Kman said. A 24-year-old mare named Tanker recently died, and many other horses are also reaching the end of their lifespan, Kman said.
“There’s a lot of older horses in the park that are going to be dying over the next few years,” adding urgency to the need for federal protection, she said.
There are precedents for federal protection of National Park Service horses, Kman said. The horses at Cape Lookout National Seashore on North Carolina’s Outer Banks and Ozark Scenic Riverways in southern Missouri are protected by federal law, she said.
Patrick Springer first joined The Forum in 1985. He covers a wide range of subjects including health care, energy and population trends. Email address: pspringer@forumcomm.com
Phone: 701-367-5294
New ballot measure guide to be mailed to North Dakota voters ahead of election
Kxnet.com
Welcome to the KXMB/KXMC YouTube channel, your home for all news, sports, and weather in western North Dakota. Subscribe to our channel for the latest information, breaking news, and weather updates.
Submit your photos, videos, and news tips to https://www.kxnet.com/report-it/. You can also message us on Facebook.
Visit KX News: https://www.kxnet.com/
Stream our shows here: https://www.kxnet.com/live-streaming/
Download our mobile app: https://www.kxnet.com/apps/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/KXNewsND?sub_confirmation
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kxnews
X: https://twitter.com/kxmb
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kx_news/
Get our new KXNews+ app on Roku, Apple TV, or Fire TV. Learn more here: https://www.kxnet.com/kx-news-plus/
BISMARCK (North Dakota Monitor) — A federal district court judge indicated he will nullify a nearly $28 million judgment against the federal government related to costs North Dakota incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests so the parties can reach a settlement.
North Dakota is still set to receive a payment Attorney General Drew Wrigley described as satisfactory, but attorneys would not disclose the amount during a Friday hearing.
Attorneys for the United States and North Dakota said the settlement would allow the parties to avoid litigating the case in appeals court,putting the nearly seven-year-old lawsuit to rest.
“We’re hoping we really don’t need to fight any further,” Department of Justice attorney Jonathan Guynn said during the hearing.
The lawsuit, filed in 2019, concerns demonstrations against the construction of the crude oil pipeline, also known as DAPL, that took place in rural south-central North Dakota in 2016 and 2017.
North Dakota claims the federal government caused the protests to grow in size and intensity by unlawfully allowing demonstrators to camp on federal land. The state says it had to pay millions of dollars on policing and cleaning up the encampments as a result. The United States denies the state’s allegations.
North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Traynor in April 2025 sided with the state and ordered the executive branch to pay North Dakota the $28 million sum, a decision the U.S. Department of Justice later appealed to the 8th Circuit.
If the settlement moves forward, North Dakota would receive a “substantial monetary payment” from the United States, attorneys said Friday. As a condition of the agreement, the Department of Justice wants Traynor’s judgment and three other orders in which he ruled against the United States to be voided. That includes the court’s 120-page ruling from April 2025.
Both parties said Friday that having the rulings nullified wouldn’t have a significant negative impact on the public, since the documents could still be cited even if they no longer hold the weight of court orders.
At the same time, Guynn said the Department of Justice wants the orders vacated because it doesn’t want the legal conclusions Traynor made to influence the outcome of future lawsuits.
“The downstream consequences of keeping these on the books is troublesome for the United States,” he said during the hearing. If Traynor does not agree to axe the rulings, the United States would likely no longer be willing to settle and move forward with its appeal instead, Guynn added.
Traynor’s orders make findings about the federal government’s responsibility under the Federal Tort Claims Act — the law North Dakota filed the suit under — which the state noted previously in court filings “could have utility holding the federal government to account” in the future.
Still, attorneys for the state said they believe this trade-off is outweighed by the time and money the public would save by not going through the appeals process. North Dakota would also avoid the risk of having Traynor’s judgment overturned by higher courts.
Wrigley said the settlement will be made public once it’s finalized.
The United States’ appeal of Traynor’s decision has been on hold since last summer, when the state and federal government informed the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals they had started settlement negotiations and wished to pause the case.
The 8th Circuit will have to first send the case back to Traynor before he could grant the parties’ requests.
The case went to trial in Bismarck in early 2024. During the four-week trial, the court heard from witnesses including former governors Doug Burgum and Jack Dalrymple, Native activists, federal officials and law enforcement.
The Dakota Access Pipeline carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. It crosses the Missouri River just north of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, which prompted the tribe to begin protesting the pipeline on the grounds that it poses a threat to its water supply and sovereignty.
North Dakota’s lawsuit originally requested $38 million in damages from the federal government. Traynor ordered the executive branch to pay $28 million since the U.S. Department of Justice previously gave the state $10 million as compensation for costs it spent related to the protests.
BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – North Dakota leaders unveiled an initiative aimed at getting more oil out of the Bakken, using enhanced oil recovery and CO₂.
Senator John Hoeven said the effort is getting a boost from $36 million from the Department of Energy for “Crack the Code 2.0,” a $157 million initiative with state and industry funding.
Hoeven said the goal is to use CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery, calling it “an important, usable, valuable commodity” and saying, “We’re linking our coal plants with our oil and gas producing companies to do it.”
Funding will be used to develop technology to make enhanced oil recovery profitable and viable, and then implement it in North Dakota oil fields in a number of pilot projects.
Hoeven said current recovery rates in the Bakken are limited.
“We’re only producing about 10 to 12% of the oil out of that shale,” he said, “But with EOR, advanced oil recovery techniques, we can double it. We can take it from 10 to 12% up to 25% or better.”
Hoeven said the effort is also tied to electricity demand, saying North Dakota will “produce more electricity for a company that wants to do AI, that wants to do data centers, needs more and more electricity,” and that “it isn’t just about oil and gas.”
North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness said the pilot projects are expected to start soon.
“We hope to see these pilots putting their technologies into the ground sometime late this year, first quarter of next year,” said Ness.
“So I would expect by this time next year, we’re going to maybe potentially begin to see what are some of the results early on,” Ness added. “And again, this is going to take multiple, multiple swings at this thing. It’s not going to just happen. If it was easy, we’d be doing it. Nobody’s done it anywhere in the world. This is where we’re going to crack the code.”
Copyright 2026 KFYR. All rights reserved.
-
New York51 minutes ago‘She Studied Us for a Moment With Theatrical Longing’
-
Detroit, MI1 hour agoDetroit shines red for ALS kickoff & lighting ceremony
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoWhere to watch Pittsburgh Pirates vs San Francisco Giants: TV channel, start time, streaming for May 10
-
Dallas, TX2 hours agoDallas weather: Large hail, dangerous winds, and flash flooding possible
-
Boston, MA2 hours ago‘This is really just the start of it all’: Mojo Boston makes splashy debut at City Hall Plaza – The Boston Globe
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoPerson dies after being hit by plane at Denver airport
-
Seattle, WA2 hours ago‘Do you care more about the kids or the drug addicts?’: Jake calls out Seattle for potential homeless shelters near schools – MyNorthwest.com
-
San Diego, CA2 hours agoIt’s ‘trust, but verify’ for new AI spine surgery system