Sponsors (2)
The bill preserves a minimum wild-horse population and increases management transparency, but it reduces managers' flexibility to remove animals—raising costs and potentially delaying ecological or disease-response actions.
Visitors and local communities retain a minimum wild-horse population (at least 150), preserving recreational, scenic, and cultural value on park lands.
State and park managers must produce a herd-management plan within 120 days, promoting timely, coordinated, and cost-effective actions to protect park natural resources.
Local governments and the public receive annual data on herd population, structure, and health, increasing transparency and public stewardship of the herd.
Rural communities and park ecosystems could suffer because restricting removals may hinder rapid responses to overgrazing or other ecological damage.
Taxpayers may face higher park-management costs or reallocation of Interior resources because maintaining a minimum herd size requires ongoing funding and care.
Visitors and public health could be put at greater risk if limits on removals complicate timely disease control or invasive-species responses when emergencies are not clearly covered.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Requires the Interior Department to keep a genetically diverse herd of at least 150 horses in the park's South Unit, adopt a management plan within 120 days, restrict removals, and report annually.
Introduced April 9, 2025 by John Hoeven · Last progress April 9, 2025
Directs the Secretary of the Interior to maintain a genetically diverse herd of at least 150 horses in the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and to prepare a horse-management plan within 120 days that balances cost‑effective herd management with protection of park natural resources. The measure limits removal of horses from park land except to preserve genetic diversity, in emergencies, or to protect public health and safety, and requires annual monitoring, assessment, and public disclosure of herd population, structure, and health.