HORSES FOR LIFE FOUNDATION
  • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • SLAUGHTER
    • Horse Slaughter
    • History of Horse Slaughter
    • Horse Slaughter Facts
    • Horse Slaughter Videos
    • Unwanted Horses Myth
  • RACING
    • HORSE DOPING
  • CRUELTY
    • Horse Soring
    • DONKEY SKIN TRADE
  • WILD HORSES
    • WILD HORSES UNDER SIEGE
    • 10 YEARS TO AML PLAN
    • KEEP PUBLIC LANDS WILD
  • ACTION ALERTS
  • NEWS + BLOG

Contraception Study on the Wild Horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

12/11/2014

 
Wild Horses Fertility Control GonaCon Wild horses at Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Dan Baker is not like an expectant dad waiting to find out if it’s a boy or a girl. He’s the opposite, hoping to hear that all the pregnancy tests come back negative. Baker, a research biologist at Colorado State University’s animal reproduction and biotechnology laboratory, is the man in charge of an experimental contraception program in the wild horse herd at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. There is hope that Baker’s work is productive — not reproductive.

Waiting for results
Within a month, he’ll know if he’s onto something that will have implications far beyond this singular herd in this one park — or if he’s back to square one.

The samples are in, and tests will be run soon. He hesitates to even guess at the results. “It’s totally unknown. It could be anything between no effects all the way to permanent sterilization. This question has never been answered,” Baker said.

If his experiment works, it could be a new way to control the park’s constantly expanding wild horse herd and possibly the thousands of wild horses on Bureau of Land Management land. The method also could have uses in the control of unmanaged wild dog populations in Third World countries, or simply to suppress fertility in domestic horses, dogs and cats.

Badlands lab
Baker’s work in what he calls a perfect — not to mention beautiful — outdoors laboratory dates back to 2009. “It’s such a great natural lab out there. The area the horses are confined in is large, but not too large. It’s great landscape, and we can find them most of the time,” he said.

In 2009, during the park’s scheduled wild horse roundup and herd reduction, Baker vaccinated 28 wild horses with GonaCon, a vaccine that has been used to suppress pregnancy in captive animals, not free-roaming wild ones such as those in the park. The results were poor. Half the vaccinated mares became pregnant and, within three years, they all did. What they’ve since learned is that, even though the park’s wild horses are in excellent physical condition, with good forage, they carry a big parasite load, which may have prevented the kind of antibody response needed to suppress pregnancy.

“Real world horses get injured, or have fence cuts, and their immune systems go toward those things rather than suppressing the hormones that control reproduction,” Baker said.

Last year, the park conducted another wild horse roundup and that’s when Baker’s research took a step further. The same 28 mares were revaccinated to learn whether a second booster of the same drug would achieve a higher antibody response and improve contraception.


Wild Horses GonaCon Fertility ControlFecal sample lab work at Colorado State University - contraceptive research program.
Last month, volunteers collected fecal samples dropped on park ground by as many of the 28 vaccinated mares as could be located.

By measuring the feces for estradiol, a hormone excreted by a fetus, Baker’s lab team will soon know if the revaccination was successful.

“As the fetus matures, the concentration of estradiol gets higher and higher. If it’s 10 (nanograms per gram), they’re not pregnant. If it’s 100, they are. In a couple of weeks, after we’ve looked, if everything’s really high, the study’s over,” Baker said.

The proof will be in the lab, but the mares will also be observed in the spring to verify the actual foaling rate.


Park waiting, too

Blake McCann is the park’s wildlife biologist, a man who prizes science and wildlife equally. McCann’s hopeful the revaccination works, too, but for reasons that have more to do with the horses, than the science itself. He’d like to see the park bring to an end the longstanding practice of controlling the wild horse population with controversial helicopter-driven roundups and transport to public livestock sales barns. Instead, if the revaccination controls pregnancy by even 50 percent, McCann said becomes more feasible to also lure the wild horses into a makeshift corral in their own environment and remove small select numbers for sale right there.

That practice would be much less traumatic all around for humans and horses, he said. He plans to conduct a corral trap this year to start learning how and to manage the 142 wild horses currently in the park, a number well above the 40 to 90 population considered ideal.

Some doses of the second vaccine were delivered by dart, which was acceptable for the experiment. “For research, yes, but to use that as a management tool, we would have to go into an environmental impact statement. Darting animals is not part of our management plan,” McCann said.

Whether through contraception or smaller removals from the temporary corrals, McCann said he does not want to see wild horse numbers return to the all-time high of 200 that were there last year when 103 were culled and sold at Wishek Livestock. “I don’t want to get to 200 again and do another helicopter roundup. With the corral trapping, we can remove a dozen or so every year and get the young mares out before they become reproductively active,” he said.

That said, McCann said he’s hoping Baker’s work is productive, not reproductive, as it were. “I would like to see the vaccine be a viable tool. We always have to be adaptable as a situation unfolds. I’m hopeful it’s effective,” he said.

Source: Bismarck
Tribune by Lauren Donovan



Comments are closed.
    Picture

    TOPICS

    +  Horse Slaughter
    ​

    +  Horse Racing

    ​​+  WILD HORSES

    +  Horse Soring

    +  Donkey Skin Trade

    ​CATEGORIES

    SUBJECTS

    All
    10 Years To AML
    1971 Free Roaming Wild Horse And Burro Act
    AAEP
    AB 128
    Adopt Don't Shop
    Ag Gag
    Agriculture Appropriations
    Allen Rutberg
    American Mustang Foundation
    American Quarter Horse Association
    American Slaughter Prevention Act
    Andy Barr
    Animal Abuse
    Animal Cruelty
    Animal Law
    Animal Welfare Act
    Appropriations Committee
    AQHA
    Assateague
    AUM
    Beef Belt
    Ben Shelly
    Bible Spring Complex
    Big Lick
    Bill Richardson
    Blair Dunn
    BLM
    Boyd Spratling
    Brian Sandoval
    Bruce Wagman
    Bruce Wagman
    Bureau Of Land Management
    Burros
    Canada
    Canadian Horse Defence Coalition
    CFIA
    Chevaline
    Chris Stewart
    Churchill Downs
    Clean Racing
    Congressional Veterinary Medicine Caucus
    Corolla Wild Horses
    Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act
    D'Allende Meats
    Dan Erdel
    David Bernhardt
    David Rains
    Deerwood Ranch
    Dianne Feinstein
    Dina Titus
    Disaster Planning
    Donkey
    Donkey Skins
    Dorian Ayache
    Double D Ranch
    Earl Blumenauer
    Eco Sanctuary
    Ed Whitfield
    Ejiao
    Emergency Evacuations
    Endangered Species Act
    Epa
    Equine Information Document
    European Commission
    Farm Bill
    Fda
    Feral Horses
    Fertility Control
    Fish And Wildlife Service
    Fmia
    Food Fraud
    Food Safety
    Forest Service
    Foundation To Protect New Mexico Wildlife
    Frank Guinta
    FSIS
    GAO
    Gary Herbert
    Gary King
    Genetic Viability
    Giving Tuesday
    GnRH
    Goicoechea
    GonaCon
    Grazing Improvement Act
    Grazing Permits
    Horse Abuse
    Horse Care
    Horse Carriages
    Horse Doping
    Horsemeat
    Horse Protection Act
    Horseracing
    Horse Racing
    Horseracing Integrity Act
    Horseracing Integrity And Safety Act
    Horse Rescue
    Horses
    Horses For Life Foundation
    Horse Slaughter
    Horse Soring
    Horse Transport
    Horse Transportation Safety Act
    Horse Tripping
    Horse Whipping
    H.R.1518
    Hr 1518
    H.R. 1942
    H.R. 5058
    HSUS
    Humane Methods Of Slaughter Act
    Humboldt
    Interior Appropriations
    International Equine Business Association
    Iowa
    Iron-county
    Jan Schakowsky
    Jay Nixon
    Jim Moran
    Joan Guilfoyle
    Jockey Club
    Joe Neguse
    John-barrasso
    John Katko
    Johnnie HMA
    Joseph D. Tydings
    Judy Chu
    Kansas
    Karen Budd-Falen
    Keaton Walker
    Ken Salazar
    Kentucky Derby
    King Amendment
    Kurt Schrader
    Larry Wheelon
    Lasix
    L.D. 1286
    Leonard Blach
    Lester Friedlander
    Lisa Murkowski
    Livestock
    Maine
    Mary Fallin
    Mary Landrieu
    Matt Mead
    Mexico
    Michelle Lujan Grisham
    Mike Fitzpatrick
    Mike Lee
    Missouri
    Mitt Romney
    Modoc
    Moran Young Amendment
    Moranyoung Amendment670e4071a7
    Mowdy Ranch
    NACO
    National Academy Of Sciences
    National Day Of The Horse
    National Residue Program
    Navajo Nation
    Neil Kornze
    NEPA
    Nevada
    New Mexico
    New Mexico Equine Rescue Alliance
    Nicholas Dodman
    Nm
    North Carolina
    NTRA
    OGF Vaccine
    Oklahoma
    Oocyte Growth Factor Vaccine
    Oregon
    Ottb
    PAST ACT
    Path Forward Plan
    Patricia M. Fazio
    Patrick Meehan
    Paul Tonko
    PEER
    Phenylbutazon
    Platero Project
    Porcine Zona Pelucida
    Princess Anne
    Public Lands
    Public Lands Council
    PZP
    Rains Natural Meats
    Raul Grijalva
    Responsible Transportation
    Richard-burr
    Rick De Los Santos
    Robert Redford
    Roly Owers
    Rosa DeLauro
    Roswell
    Roy Blunt
    Roy Blunt
    Ryan Zinke
    Ryoichi Okubo
    SAFE Act
    SAFE Act
    Safeguard American Food Exports Act
    Sage Grouse
    Sally Jewell
    Sally Jewell
    Santa Anita
    SB 469
    Science-and-conservation-center
    Sooner Poll
    Soring
    South-korea
    Spayvac
    Sterilization
    Steve King
    Steve-king
    Stronarch-group
    Susanamartinez
    Susana Martinez
    Susana Martinez
    Tail-braces
    Taylor-grazing-act
    Ted-yoho
    Tennessee-walking-horses
    Tennessee-walking-horses
    Theodore-roosevelt-national-park
    Theresa-vincent
    Todd-gloria
    Tom Davis
    Tom Gorey
    Tom-gorey
    Tom-persechino
    Tom-udall
    Tom Vilsack
    Tom Vilsack
    Tribal Lands
    Unwanted-horses
    Usada
    Us Court Of Appealsd83cbed7a8
    USDA
    Us Fish And Wildlife Service86af631d0b
    Us Forest Service367fe28759
    Usgs
    Utah
    Valley Meat
    Valley Meat
    Vern-buchanan
    Vern-buchanan
    Voluntary-grazing-permit-retirement-act
    Walking Horses
    Walter-b-jones
    Welfare-ranchers
    Western-watersheds-project
    Whip Rules
    Wild Horses
    Wild-oversight-act
    William-perry-pendley
    World-horse-welfare
    Wyoming
    Yakama Nation
    Yakama-nation
    Yakama-nation
    Zonastath

    ​ARCHIVES

    MONTH / yEAR

    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    May 2017
    September 2016
    June 2016
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011
    June 2011
    July 2008
    November 2007

Picture

WHO WE ARE

About Us
Contact Us

COMMUNITY

Facebook
Twitter

LATEST NEWS

Horse Slaughter
Horse Racing
Wild Horses
Horse Soring

RESOURCES

Unwanted Horses Myth
Adopt Don't Shop
Adoption Tips

​THIS WEBSITE AND ITS CONTENT COPYRIGHT OF HORSES FOR LIFE FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © 2012—2021

  • Home
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • SLAUGHTER
    • Horse Slaughter
    • History of Horse Slaughter
    • Horse Slaughter Facts
    • Horse Slaughter Videos
    • Unwanted Horses Myth
  • RACING
    • HORSE DOPING
  • CRUELTY
    • Horse Soring
    • DONKEY SKIN TRADE
  • WILD HORSES
    • WILD HORSES UNDER SIEGE
    • 10 YEARS TO AML PLAN
    • KEEP PUBLIC LANDS WILD
  • ACTION ALERTS
  • NEWS + BLOG