North Dakota officials plead with Theodore Roosevelt National Park to keep wild horses

BISMARCK — Gov. Doug Burgum, the state’s tourism director and legislative leaders are pleading with Theodore Roosevelt Nationwide Park to work with the state to discover a method to hold the park’s in style wild horse herd.

The request, made throughout a press convention on Monday, Jan. 30, got here on the eve of the expiration of the general public remark interval in search of enter to the park’s administration plan for the horses.

The park introduced its most well-liked choice is to step by step get rid of the herd of 186 horses, which the governor and others famous roamed the park since earlier than it was created in 1947.

Burgum mentioned fewer than 200 horses are free roaming within the park’s 46,158-acre south unit, an space equal to 72 sq. miles.

“We’re speaking about 200 horses on this huge south unit,” the governor mentioned. He requested park officers to work with the state to strike a administration plan balancing the scale of the horse herd that protects the park’s surroundings.

“For many years and many years, these horses have existed peacefully within the park,” serving as an “indelible image of the untamed badlands,” Burgum mentioned.

Eliminating the horses would strike a blow not solely to park visitation but in addition to the economic system of Medora, the gateway group to the park’s south unit, and the encompassing space, he mentioned.

Burgum famous that the Bureau of Land Administration manages greater than 82,000 wild horses on western federal lands. “We all know that’s an issue,” he mentioned.

“We imagine there are alternatives aside from eliminating this small herd,” Burgum added. “We stand able to collaborate.”

Burgum famous the state has vary scientists and different consultants who’re prepared to assist the park analysis an answer, saying the park is “grossly underfunded and understaffed” relative to its mission.

The governor additionally famous that Roosevelt himself wrote about generally seeing wild horses within the Little Missouri Badlands throughout his ranching days within the open vary period of the Eighties close to Medora.

“They’ve been a part of the panorama of western North Dakota since he famously arrived right here,” Burgum mentioned.

Park officers have mentioned their mission is to honor Roosevelt’s conservation legacy, not his ranching legacy. “However we will’t and we shouldn’t separate these two,” Burgum mentioned, including Roosevelt mentioned conservation and improvement go collectively.

“Ranching is improvement and ranching is conservation,” the governor mentioned. Favoring one over the opposite “is a disservice to his (Roosevelt’s) legacy.”

Though not current on the press convention, Burgum thanked Sens. John Hoeven and Kevin Cramer, each Republicans from North Dakota, for his or her willingness to work with the Nationwide Park Service on an answer for preserving the horses and longhorns within the park.

Sara Otte Coleman, North Dakota’s tourism director, mentioned the horses are a serious vacationer attraction.

“This is among the only a few nationwide parks that does have wild horses,” she mentioned. “That units it aside,” and the horses steadily seem on lists of “must-see” points of interest. The horses are photogenic, Otte Coleman mentioned.

On the rostrum close by, a tv display screen flashed rotating pictures of the park horses.

Final yr, there have been greater than 770,000 journeys to the park, greater than half of them from non-residents, Otte Coleman mentioned. Billings County, which incorporates Medora, generated $16 million from tourism spending, she mentioned.

Rep. Mike Lefor, R-Dickinson, the Home majority chief, famous many western North Dakota legislators had been among the many sponsors of a

decision urging the park to maintain the horses

and longhorn cattle.

“We stay in that space,” he mentioned. “We all know the significance of what’s occurring right here.”

Sen. Brad Bekkedahl, R-Williston, mentioned the horses and longhorns have huge help. “That is as grassroots as you will get in North Dakota,” he mentioned.

Rep. Josh Boschee, D-Fargo, the Home minority chief, mentioned he acquired “a whole lot of emails” from folks in help of the horses, every with a narrative about seeing the herd within the park and what the horses imply to them.

Boschee requested the park for an extension of the general public remark interval however was denied.

Burgum, who despatched a

letter to Angie Richman

, the superintendent of the park, asking to collaborate on a plan to maintain the horses, urged folks to submit official feedback to the park by the deadline.

Richman, who was out of the workplace Monday, was not instantly obtainable for remark.

Till 11:59 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 31, feedback and supporting documentation may be submitted on-line by way of the park’s Planning, Atmosphere, and Public Remark web site at

https://parkplanning.nps.gov/LP

or by writing to: Superintendent, Theodore Roosevelt Nationwide Park, P.O. Field 7, Medora, N.D., 58645