Hello and Happy Wednesday!

We promised to talk about the tracking collars and what we learned from the presentation that was held at Theodore Roosevelt National Park at the beginning of July.  We have asked for the slides or a recording from the presentation so we could share it with all of you, but were told they could not be shared because these are just preliminary findings, the research is still ongoing. The presentation was given by Kathryn A. Schoenecker. She has written other papers on this subject you can do a google search and find them.

As you know, the experiment with the collars on the TRNP horses began in October of 2024.  The USGS is the agency that is conducting the collar study.  The USGS is the science/research arm of the Department of the Interior.  The USGS does not manage land, like the National Park Service (NPS) or Bureau of Land Management (BLM).  They give those agencies the science they need to make management decisions.  She explained that those agencies are actually directed by Congress to do science-based management, so they can’t just go into their park and say, this is what we want to do with these horses. They actually have to follow science, because that’s what they’re directed to do, by law.

Her talk centered around spatial ecology.  That’s what they are studying. 

From Wikipedia (this is important, so please take note):

Spatial ecology studies the ultimate distributional or spatial unit occupied by a species. In a particular habitat shared by several species, each of the species is usually confined to its own microhabitat or spatial niche because two species in the same general territory cannot usually occupy the same ecological niche for any significant length of time.

Tracking collars, she explained, allow the animal to tell us what they need. You can put a tracking collar on the animal, and it tells you how far it will go from water. If you put the water over here, will the animal come to that water or is it too far away? You can figure out what animals meet, how the horses in the park select resources that they want to use, and where they want to be.

Kathryn, the person doing the presentation for the USGS, helped develop the tracking collars for horses.  She said horses were different than other large ungulates, like elk and bison.   She said all these species have really tough hides, and horses are so sensitive that they can feel it when a fly lands on them.  It was really important that there was a lot of sensitivity in how they developed this collar for horses and figure out what the best material was to use on these animals to start tracking them.

They obtain a GPS location from the satellites every two hours. The locations are stored on the collar, and they’re also transmitted through a web service to the vendor web search that they go into and they can collect the data.

There are some caveats with the collars. They still recommend that they get checked all the time, that horses are not just turned out with collars on. She said you have to go observe them and luckily, in TRNP, she said, there are a lot of people observing the horses.  This has helped them see how they performed.

Following are preliminary results Kathryn shared with us during her presentation.  These are the movements of the animals from January to June in 2025.

The USGS collared 15 horses with the help of the North Dakota Badlands Horse in October of 2024 when the horses were rounded up by helicopter and brought to the handling facility on the east boundary of the park.   She said NDBH was “really terrific”. They knew the horses and really helped the USGS identify them. They only wanted one horse in each band and NDBH helped them identify which mare was a lead mare or an important mare in the group so they knew who they should put a collar on.

The program they use gives an animation that shows where each band is located and where they travel.  She said this helps them see where each social group is, and at what times of the year do they start interacting more with each other and who is interacting with who. 

The data showed the horses come together more in June, which she said makes sense because it is breeding season. 

During the summer months, the horse bands are together more than they are in the winter months.  They have also found that they move around more during the summer months than in the winter months.  She explained this was probably because of a few reasons:

• It is not as hot in the winter months
• They’re just really active during the day in the wintertime, because it’s probably more comfortable
• They’re just, they’re all regulating or something, but they’re not doing a lot of movement at night in the wintertime, which is also very interesting to her

She also said that it was very interesting to see to what extent are they using just a portion of the range? She found this really interesting, not only from an ecology standpoint, but also from a social standpoint. How are they using the landscape? How are they interacting with the other bands? Where are they in winter and summer? With the collars, she explained, they can see exactly where they travelled. They can see that in the summertime; they don’t seem to go as far from water. In winter, they are very spread out. The reasoning for being more spread out in winter vs. summer, she concluded:

• They’re much more spread out because it’s cooler, they’re less reliant on water.
• The mares are not lactating, so they can move around more.
• They’re not as tied to freestanding water, like they are in the summertime. This allows them to spread out more and use more of the habitat, more of the forage, that kind of thing.

The next thing they did is set out to understand how the horses are selecting where they go on a landscape?

They built a resource selection model to help them see what the horses were selecting for.  This is based on research her colleague, Dr. Smiley did on equid species from all over the world.   That research, she explained, shows that where our North American ungulates are always selecting for greenup, that’s partly what drives their migration, they go to areas where it’s greening up, and that’s how/where they move. Their research found that horses weren’t doing that. Horses, because their digestive system is so plastic, and they can eat so many different things, even if they prefer graminoids, they can eat a lot of different things because their digestive system is so functional they just need water. They need a lot of water, though. Their digestive systems actually a little bit less efficient with water, and so they excrete a lot of water. In this paper, they found globally that all the equid species select for water more than they were selecting for that greenup.

She said that this herd is so interesting because we have a very different ecosystem here. These horses are living in a different place than they are in the rest of the West, which is an interesting comparison. So what they want to know is why do they use what they use and what do they need?

What they found:

• They looked at terrain – they’re selecting highly for low terrain ruggedness. When the terrain ruggedness gets really high, they’re not selecting for that area anymore.
• Distance from roads was significant – oddly, they’re selecting closer distance from roads in the summertime. This didn’t make sense to her, because there’s high traffic in the summer months.  In the wintertime, they’re neither avoiding nor attracted to roads.
• Distance from water was significant – they are selecting for areas that are close to water. But not in wintertime, they don’t seem to be doing much with water in the winter months. (She found that very interesting)
• Herbaceous covered shrub cover was important, but not in winter. They are avoiding shrub cover in the summertime. When there’s high shrub cover, they are not selecting it.  In the winter that differs: They’re still selecting for greenness, though, and they’re still selecting for herbaceous cover down below, and they are sort of selecting for shrub cover, but not terribly.

They think that the reason that they look like they’re selecting for roads in the summertime is because the roads happen to have been built in the flat habitat, which is the areas that they already wanted to use, and they’re just not bothered by people.

She summarized that their preliminary conclusions are the horses select for roads, but probably not really. Water and flat areas in summer, and they think the road selection may be related to roads being established in flat areas, which also have high herbaceous cover and water sources in those low areas. The high traffic doesn’t really seem to deter them in summer from the roads. Which she felt was a good thing for the park to know. The roads aren’t bothering the horses. The horses were more spread out in winter. They were using more of the entire habitat. They did not select for water, and they were not tied to water anymore, because mares are not lactating, and they can eat snow for hydration in the winter, so they didn’t have to be near open water sources. Horses were avoiding rugged terrain in all seasons. They don’t like to go up those slopes, so they can avoid it, because it wastes energy, and then they are all about conserving their energy, and they avoided shrubs in summer, but there was really no relation to winter.

I asked her if they are taking social dynamics into consideration.  She said no.

One thing we have argued since the announcement of the collars is that there are more than enough people photographing and documenting the horses that can give the park the information they are getting from the collars, if not more.  We see the interactions and the reasons why the horses do what they do.  A tracking collar can’t do that. 

For example, and the problem(s) with some of the conclusions they have drawn above:

In the 10 years I have been photographing, documenting and advocating for these horses:

1. Each band has their favorite territories – some stay in those areas all year round, others migrate to different areas in the spring/summer and then again in late fall/winter. 
2. The horses can be hardest to find in spring and fall if water is scarce because they know where to find water when they need it.  We do not find it as interesting that water was not as much of an issue in the winter months – as long as we have snow that is!
3. The roads are just part of their home.  I disagree with them avoiding rugged landscape or that the roads that the horse use are in flat areas.  One of the best places to view the horses, near the road, is at the Boicourt Overlook – which is higher ground.  They go down to the flats during the summer months.  Some days, they come up the rugged buttes to Boicourt, which is also near the road.  Also, for those of you who have been to the park in the summer, how many times have you seen horses on the top of a butte trying to catch a breeze to help keep the flies away?
4. I do believe wild horse mares DO lactate in the winter months.  Isn’t this why EVERYONE – and I mean EVERYONE – was concerned about Boomer being 6 months old when his mom died?  I know some people even hoped that Mare Angel (who had her own baby that year) would possibly nurse him through the winter (she didn’t). Those of us who photograph and document the horses have without a doubt seen mares nursing foals throughout the winter months.
5. For us non-science folks – a simple Google/AI search also talks about why they do or don’t seek herbaceous covered shrubs: In the summer, wild horses generally avoid or under-utilize herbaceous-covered shrublands because they prefer open grasslands and lush riparian meadows where forage is more succulent, easier to digest, and closer to vital water sources.  In simple terms, the horses eat the best available forage, when they can and that is generally in the warmer months. 
6. The tracking collars do not take into account the record 22 bachelor stallions currently in the park and how those social dynamics are changing the movement of the horses.  They also do not take into account the new younger band stallions who have not been accepted by the older band stallions which also creates a change in their band movements. 

She also showed slides from their data that show the horses being near the road throughout the month of June.  When I told her we have a CUA permit and do tours.  We were in the park 2-4 times a week in June and in all that time only seen the horses by the road once – and it was only 2 horses.  Additionally, people who came into our store throughout the month let us know they didn’t see ANY horses either.  That is when she said this data was from June 2025.

Being wild animals, we know we can’t count on them to do the EXACT same thing every single day, every single month or even every single year. 

Case in point:

As we said, the horses generally are on what we call “the flats” in the summer months.  Last week, we found most of the bands who are normally on the flats in a completely different area.  Why?  Temperatures have been hovering around 100 for weeks.  Water supplies have dried up and as she said, horses, like all mammals, need water.  They moved somewhere where water was easier to access.  A few days later, things cooled, we got a little rain, and the horses were back to their normal area on the flats. 

Tracking collars are NOT able to give them that data. 

Things they want to look at next:

1. How do they respond to these areas that are established campsites?
2. Horse and bison interactions/land use

Over the last year, they had collars on some bison as well. She said, when you look at bison and horses, you can see that they are using the same areas, and they want to understand that a little bit better. These areas that they’re sharing, and these areas that they’re not sharing, what are those features on the landscape that are possibly segregating them in certain areas?

She said that another thing that’s really interesting about the TRNP ecosystem, that is not true in the Great Basin where all the other horses are, is that we have kind of a unique situation because we have higher productivity than the Great Basin. The great basin is very arid. There’s a lot of damage from horses if there’s not enough moisture. But this ecosystem is really kind of interesting because there might be opportunities for facilitation.

So they want to know, is there any facilitation between bison and horses in this system?

If we go back to the definition we gave at the beginning about spatial ecology – remember the last line of the definition:

two species in the same general territory cannot usually occupy the same ecological niche for any significant length of time.

The bison and horses HAVE been occupying the same ecological niche since the bison were re-introduced in 1956.  That’s 70 YEARS of cohabitating together!

Also note the emphasis on the horses NEED for water.  We are sure that will come up again.

As one of our followers, a noted long-time professor at NDSU told us in several conversations: “It used to be scientific papers were created by doing the research and coming to an objective conclusion.  They seem to have a habit of coming to a conclusion and then finding the science to back up their desired conclusion.”

I also asked if there were ever issues with the remote release (not here but on other BLM horses) She said yes, they did have problems with the remote release and sometimes it did require the BLM to round up the horses to remove the collars.

For those of you wondering how long the collars will remain on the horses…remember, we were originally told 2 to 2-1/2 years.  The collars were put on at the October 2024 helicopter roundup.  We all expected they would be remote released in October of 2026 or spring 2027 at the latest.

Kathryn let us know that her funding from USGS is for 4 years – YES! TWICE as long as we were originally told.  Blake McCann seemed surprised at the change in time, his understanding was that the battery life in the collars was not more than 2-1/2 years. 

We have been communicating with Blake for clarification on this since the event.  Last week he let us know he got the clarification he needed.  His response:

The intent is for the collars to remain in place through the end of their battery life. Initially, the NPS was informed that battery life was expected to be 2 – 2.5 years. However, we learned during the PVR event earlier this month (and I have confirmed recently) that the batteries may have a lifespan of approximately four years. 

To make the best use of the resources already expended and maximize the value of data being collected, the current plan is to continue data collection for the duration of the battery life. Once the batteries are no longer able to transmit data, the collars will be removed. Data gathered through this study is and will continue to provide valuable information to help inform future management practices as we evaluate the appropriate path forward. 

If we receive any new or different information regarding the collars or the study, we will keep you informed. 

It seems our horses will continue to be experimented on with the use of these collars through at least 2028.

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