On Prince’s debut album, For You, released in 1978, he wrote, arranged, composed, produced, and performed the album all by himself at twenty years old.
Star Wars broke the US Weekend Box Office record twice, first on the 11th weekend of its initial 1977 run and then again on the first weekend of its 1978 re-issue. Jaws 2 held the record for one month in between, so they both took the record AND lost it to the same film.
There is a “WELCOME TO CLEVELAND” sign on a rooftop in the flight path of a Milwaukee airport. It has been confusing passengers since 1978. Mark Gubin, the creator, said: “Living in the world is not a dress rehearsal. You better have fun with it.”
Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler made it to the top of Mount Everest, the first to do so without supplementary oxygen.
1978 Most Popular TV Shows
1. Laverne & Shirley (ABC) 2. Happy Days (ABC) 3. Mork & Mindy (ABC) 4. Three’s Company (ABC) 5. Angie (ABC) 6. 60 Minutes (CBS) 7. M*A*S*H (CBS) 8. The Ropers (ABC) 9. All In The Family (CBS) 10. Taxi (ABC)
And, of course, Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Park released their timeless Environmental Assessment (EA).
Soooooo, what’s actually in this EA that the park has reverted the management of these horses to?
Methods of Population Control:
The use of water traps for controlling wild horse numbers. It would be necessary to construct a barbed wire fence completely around the major spring area and channel the water into one specific point. A water trap could then be placed around the central watering area and used to trap horses as the need arises.
The use of wing traps has good potential for controlling wild horse numbers. The use of wing traps has excellent applicability in areas such as TRNP where wild horses have well defined trail systems or movement patterns. All that is necessary is to place a well camouflaged trap in front of the animals and then move them at a moderate pace into the trap wings. Once inside the wings, however, it is imperative that the horseback riders be close behind the animals or when they sense that they are trapped, they will double back and come out through the wings.
The humane destruction of wild horses is undoubtedly the most effective method of controlling horse numbers. Likewise, humane destruction is the most socially unacceptable of all alternative methods available.
The technique of immobilization or chemical restraint can be an excellent tool for use capturing wild horses, particularly when small numbers of animals are involved. However, when immobilizing wild horses, the problem always arises as to what to do with a captured animal when no handling facilities are available nearby. This problem can be overcome with hobbles or other devices which prevent the animal from running. The animal can be released wearing such devices and then picked up by horseback riders at a later date.
From the EA:
A publication entitled “Wild Horse Capture Techniques” has been attached to this report. (NOTE: this was NOT included in the paperwork we received) This publication discusses immobilization as well as other capture techniques in greater detail. However, when using immobilization, particularly with the drug Succinylcholine chloride, a certain amount of training should be obtained to help minimize death losses. This training is available by the BLM and if possible, will be available upon request.
Fertility Control:
The technique of vasectomies for dominant stallions appears to have some potential for controlling the TRNP wild horse population. The concept to be employed would involve capturing dominant stallions and performing surgical vasectomies.
An alternative to surgical vasectomies would involve the injection of a sclerosing agent such as iodine, into the epididymis, located at the base of the testes. However, this is not a proven technique and therefore cannot be recommended.
Also from the EA:
A word of caution should probably be interjected in relation to fertility control. The use of vasectomies is a non-reversible process. Therefore, if vasectomies are successful in reducing foal production and if they are performed on all dominant stallions, the recruitment of young animals into the population could be severely limited. If this were to go on for many years, entire age classes of animals would be completely missing from the population. This is totally unacceptable from a biological standpoint and could result in the collapse of the herd after several years.
WOW huh? Seems like EXACTLY what is being proposed only with GonaCon.
Just FYI…
Methods of that may be considered are trapping, round-up, tranquilizing and direct reduction (shooting)
Outriders and helicopters will be used for roundups.
Animals selected for removal will be transported to a livestock auction facility.
Should horses suffer an injury during the corral operation, a veterinarian will be summoned to attend them. If an animal is injured during the drive, it will be later located and if the injury warrants, the animal will be humanely destroyed.
It was, of course, also decided that they would allow a demonstration herd of 35-60 horses to remain in the park.
We hope this helps you have a better understanding of how our beloved Theodore Roosevelt National Park wild horses will be managed.
You can read the entire EA for yourself. You will find it in the resource section of our website: https://chwha.org/library/
We hope these highlights helped you understand the park’s management plans better. Now we have to ask, are these things that you may not agree with, but can tolerate?
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