Last year, the National Park Service promulgated an environmental assessment which suggested, among other things, that Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s free-roaming wild horse herd of about 200 animals should be removed from the park. During the public comment period on the environmental assessment, I urged interested readers of this column to comment on whether wild horses should stay in or be removed from Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Boy, did you. The NPS received a total of 25,561 pieces of correspondence pertaining to the fate of wild horses within the park. Of these, 16,443 were part of form-letter campaigns propagated by various organizations. But a robust 9,118 comments were unique and individually crafted.
Residents of all 50 states, along with the District of Columbia, were represented in the public comments. Although the vast majority of the comments came from individuals, more than 50 nongovernmental organizations also offered input on the status of wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Of course, there was a wide range of ideas and opinions. That being said, far more commentators were broadly in favor of finding a way to allow wild horses to remain than were in favor of removing them from the park forever.
Lawmakers took notice. While the NPS ultimately had to make the decision itself on how to manage wildlife (or “livestock” as the NPS referred to wild horses in its environmental assessment) within park boundaries under their interpretations of relevant environmental laws and regulations, several state and federal level politicians threw their weight behind the significant public backlash against the plan to eliminate Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s horses.
The pressure finally became too much. According to an April 25 news release, the NPS has dropped its plan to remove the horses. Instead, park officials will manage the herd under an existing environmental plan from 1978.
The park itself has kept relatively quiet about terminating its horse removal plan. In a short statement, however, park officials did directly credit the public comment process for the reversal, saying that the decision “was made after careful consideration of the information and public comment received during the (environmental assessment) process.”
This is not the end of the discussion about wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Indeed, even the 1978 plan calls for a reduction in the horse herd to an unspecified number (we are told that, going forward, the herd will be “managed in a way to support genetic diversity”). Some wild horse activists are now pressing for formal federal protections for the horses, and warn that this is the only way to permanently quash the plans to fully remove this horse herd — plans which have resurfaced periodically throughout modern history.
For now, though, it’s time for everyone who submitted a comment to take a bow. No single individual or organization can take sole credit for saving Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s wild horses. Yet together, using nothing more profound than our words and the influence we have, we accomplished something important. The 600,000 people who visit Theodore Roosevelt National Park every year will henceforth have you to thank whenever they spot a majestic equine form appearing over the horizon.
Governmental units can function effectively. Some politicians are responsive to the will of the people. There are even occasionally newsworthy events you can feel good about. While we will never get to rest for long, we must savor such victories when we can. To everyone who helped advocate for the wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, thank you.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
