FRYBURG - Thursday morning's helicopter crash during a wild horse roundup near here means there is not going to be an auction with animals from the South Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
There were 29 horses in the smaller pen and about 25 remaining in bigger pens Thursday when the crash occurred. The roundup was being done to cull 75 horses from the approximately 125 overall horses from the park's South Unit.
The 75 horses were going to be sold at auction in Dickinson on Monday. TRNP superintendent Valerie Naylor said there will be another horse roundup next fall.
In previous years, volunteers and park employees on horseback have helped to gather the wild horses, something which was not done this year. Not all horses in the park are caught during a roundup, but getting about half of the population helps control the herd's size.
Volunteers Marylu and Henry Weber of Mandan began keeping track of the horses for about 20 years as they rode in the park. This is their third roundup where they've helped identify horses.
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"About eight or nine years ago, the park connected us with Tom Tescher, who tracked the horses," Marylu Weber said. "We began working with him on identifying the horses and coordinating with Mike Oehler."
The couple continues to assign numbers to the new foals each year and said there were about 22 foals born this year. By next year, there could be close to that or more.
This year's roundup did not include any testing of the horses as there had been done in the past. Naylor said things were kept minimal this year.
The history of the wild horses in the park area goes back to the 1950s when the fencing for the park was built to maintain the bison. At first the park services wasn't going to have horses in the park at all.
"Later, the Park Service decided it would be OK to have some in here as a historical exhibit so people could see what it was like when horses ran free," Naylor said. "These are descendants of primarily ranch stock who ran loose, but we don't have any document of that."
Some folks believe just by looking at the horses you can tell some are old line, Spanish line or Native American line, but there is no genetic proof of that, she added.
"There's no way to prove that since we don't have any samples from those original horses," Naylor said. "We do the best we can to maintain a variety of horses that are representative of what was here with the appropriate ages, sizes and class."
The Nokota Horse Conservancy feels very strongly these horses are part of Native American horses that were here, but there isn't genetic evidence of that, she added.
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Conservancy President Leo Kuntz and Vice President Frank Kuntz were at the roundup Thursday. The brothers have bought horses from previous roundups, but would like to see the herd managed better by the park service in the future.
