Answering your questions…

Hello and Happy Monday!  We hope everyone had a great weekend!

We have been getting a lot of questions lately about why we are not supporting an initiative from another group that follows the TRNP horses asking congress to support a “protective act” for the horses.

Aside from the fact that there is currently no “protective act” being discussed in congress…

1. Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates has been trying for YEARS to get the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park protected under federal public law.
2. Any efforts to get this herd protected under federal public law has to be sponsored/initiated by our North Dakota federal delegates. 
3. Our ND federal delegates ARE supporting our efforts to keep the horses in the park – there is no need to call them and ask them for help. 
4. Senator Hoeven is leading the fight at a federal level because he serves on a senate committee that CAN help.   His office is also in discussions with the National Park Service. 
5. While Senator Hoeven has said he WILL support federal protection for these horses, he does not feel that this is the time to try to initiate that and he has given us good reasons to back his position.  We respect him, his knowledge of the process and his relationships with other federal agencies. 

This rhetoric is coming from a group that does not understand the NEPA process that the park is engaged in, a group that Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates has repeatedly asked to work with us in the fight to save these horses and this group has repeatedly told us a firm “NO”.  Before people start asking us again who these groups are – we will simply say that you can easily see on other pages which organizations are working with us by sharing a unified message and which ones are not.  The ones who are not create more work for us because we end up spending valuable time answering questions based on initiatives on their pages that could quite possibly hurt our real efforts to save these horses. 

Do you think that last week when the federal government was minutes from a government shutdown, ANY government office appreciated phone calls about horses, especially outside of their jurisdiction?  Respect and timing are everything and when and if the time is right to rally support for these horses in Congress, we will let you know.  

I also want to add that last April, Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates was actually IN Washington, DC and we personally met with over 200 members of Congress.  They have a very well put together packet of information from us that gives historical, scientific, cultural, and economic reasons why they should support legislation, when and if it comes up, to keep the wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  We are also working with our friends at American Wild Horse Campaign who have people that lobby Congress IN Washington DC.  BELIEVE ME – when it is time for everyone to contact Congress, we will let you know!

We understand, this is so frustrating! 

We are NOT sitting here doing nothing!  Since the announcement was made on September 25, 2023, Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates has:

• Read the Draft Environmental Assessment  (EA)
• Created a series of blog posts to help educate the public about what the Draft EA says and why the public should be concerned.
• Reached out to our local and national media to help get the word out to the public – please note, other groups were contacted also by different media outlets, and they AGAIN stated that they had “no comment” on the current situation surrounding the future of the wild horses in TRNP.
• We reached out to Superintendent Angie Richman requesting that documents cited in their Draft EA be released to the public as required by the Code of Federal Regulations. We notice that this morning they have complied: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=167&projectID=105110&documentID=132153
• We reached out to Superintendent Angie Richman to let her know that the Civic Engagement Meeting they had planned was in direct conflict with the Medora City Council meeting – the ONLY meeting they will have before the October 25^th deadline. The initial meeting has been cancelled and they are working on to reschedule date for their meeting.  If this had not been done, the mayor of Medora along with city council members and other local businesses would NOT be able to attend the Park’s meeting.
• We have been talking to Senator Hoeven’s office and will be talking to them again this week.  We will update you on any news out of his office when we have it.
• We have been talking to our North Dakota state legislators and will be circling back with them this week to see how Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates can work with the state of North Dakota to combine our advocacy efforts.
• We have had numerous conversations with our legal team at Eubanks and Associates.
• We reached out to the Medora City Council and have been put on the schedule for their meeting Tuesday October 3, 2023, to discuss the Draft EA with them.
• We have reached out to the Dickinson Area Chamber of Commerce and are working with them on a way to communicate with the over 1,000 businesses that are part of the Chamber to get our message out to them about the horses.
• We will be holding a special Horse Talk on Friday, October 6, 2023, to discuss the Draft EA and answer your questions personally. 
• We wrote an article for ECI’s “Groundwork” to help raise awareness about the current plight of our wild horses
• Our friends at ECI and Save Our Wild Horses will be hosting separate Zoom meetings with us to discuss the horses with their audience.  We will announce the dates and times as soon as we finalize those plans.
• We will be working with a third group who will be coming out to meet us at TRNP for a podcast to help raise awareness. 
• This week, we will utilize our membership with the North Dakota Newspaper Association who will send our press release out to every newspaper in North Dakota.
• We have a wealth of information at our small business in Medora and continue to talk to local businesses and visitors about the Draft EA and the current plight of these horses
• We continue to talk to our other wild horse advocate allies for help and support
• We continue to reach out to different media groups trying to get the word out in different ways

I am sure there is more we have been doing, it has been a REALLY long and jam packed week!  Our point being we here at Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates are continuing to fight for this herd from EVERY ANGLE POSSIBLE! 

WE ONLY GET ONE CHANCE TO SAVE THESE HORSES! The clock is literally ticking for the freedom of just under 200 horses!

As we said, we share your frustration! 

What CAN you do to help this herd right now?

1. READ the Draft EA – every advocate needs to be educated on what is happening with this herd.
2. Write letters to the editor for your local newspaper no matter where you are!  The Associated Press published an article last week that is circulating.  There is a good chance it was in your local newspaper.  Even if it wasn’t – send a letter talking about government overreach and use the TRNP wild horses as an example!
3. Participate in our Horse Talk this Friday and if you have questions, please send them to us ahead of time, it will help us as we are putting our presentation together this week.  You can email us a info@chwha.org
4. Please support our critical advocacy work!  We are a 501(c)3 organization that depends on your donations to continue to fight for these horses.
5. If you are a person who regularly photographs these horses – PLEASE add information about their current plight to your posts!  Give the link to the Park’s planning website and encourage people to comment!  Pretty pictures are great, but they alone will NOT do anything to save this herd. 
6. Share our posts!  We need to reach as many people as possible to get them to comment during this very critical public comment period. 
7. Talk to 10 people PERSONALLY about the current plight of the TRNP wild horses AND encourage them to comment!  And then encourage them to talk to 10 people!  Can you see how quickly that will get the word out?
8. Email us at info@chwha.org if you would like us to send you brochures or stickers to pass out in your area to help raise awareness!

We will be spending today wrapping things up from our silent auction that ended last week.  Tomorrow we will start a new blog series on what your comment letters should AND should NOT look like. 

Please continue to send us your questions and we will do our best to answer them.  You can also let us know what else you would like to see in our blog posts.  You can email us at info@chwha.org

Thank you for your support and have a GREAT week!

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