Hello and Happy Tuesday!
We are currently 8 days away from the end of the comment period for the wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Superintendent Richman will be back in the office tomorrow (10/18) so hopefully she will make an announcement on IF the Park will be granting our extension request.
Meanwhile…
We wanted to take a moment to say thank you to friends who have been instrumental in helping us in a variety of ways over these last few weeks:
THANK YOU to our followers who emailed us yesterday and helped us understand the Section 106 Review process! Your insights on this aspect of our advocacy helped more than you know!
THANK YOU also to the 315 of you who have already signed our petition that we will be sending to the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Office. Public comments ARE considered during their process. THIS is how we get the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park classified as “historical” and/or “culturally significant” WITHOUT interference from the Park! THANK YOU also to all of those groups/organizations and pages who understand how important this is to the fate of the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park and have shared our message!
We also want to say THANK YOU to our friends at Oregon Wild Horse Organization (OWHO)! They have been working diligently on their comment letter to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and found that there are STILL 7 documents that Theodore Roosevelt National Park cited in their Draft EA that they have NOT released to the public! That’s right – 8 days before the comment period is scheduled to end, we STILL have 7 documents that we cannot properly view. OWHO sent this email to Superintendent Richman yesterday:
Hello Angie Richman,
I am preparing a public comment on the TRNP Livestock Plan EA. There are some references cited that I cannot access. Some are in the links you provide but only give us an abstract which I am sure you understand do not provide the specific details of the studies or projects that allow us to understand how the author/researcher got to the conclusions, or made statements utilized in the EA to support the narrative you have expressed.
We would like the documents we list at the bottom of this email. And due to the extensive pagination to be read and evaluated we would like a time extension of at least 30 days to provide a full substantive public comment.
Thank you and I look forward to your timely response to this request.
TJ Barbour
- Berger, J. 1985, Interspecific Interactions and Dominance among Wild Great Basin Ungulates, Journal of Mammalogy, Volume 66, Issue 3, 9 August 1985, Pages 571–573. Internet website: https://doi.org/10.2307/1380939.
- Irby, L. R., J. E. Norland, J. A. Westfall Jr., and M. A. Sullivan. 2002. “Evaluation of a forage allocation model for Theodore Roosevelt National Park.” Journal of Environmental Management 64(2):153–169.
- Jabro, J. D, W. M. Iversen, R. G. Evans, B. L. Allen, and W. B. Stevens. 2014. Repeated Freeze-Thaw Cycle Effects on Soil Compaction in a Clay Loam in Northeastern Montana. Soil Science Society of America Journal, Volume 78, Issue 3, pages 737-744, June 10, 2014.
- Lesica, P. 2020. “Feral horses are associated with a decline in a rare semi-arid grassland plant.” Journal of Arid Environments 179. 104180. 10.1016/j.jaridenv.2020.104180.
- Lopinot, N. and J. Ray. 2007. Trampling Experiments in the Search for the Earliest Americans. American Antiquity, 72(4), 771-782. doi:10.2307/25470445.
- 2022h. Communication between Angie Richman, Blake McCann, Maureen McGee-Ballinger, and Bret Morton, Theodore Roosevelt National Park with Holly Prohaska Amy Cordle and Andy Spellmeyer, EMPSi. October 11–13, 2022. Medora, North Dakota
- Stoneburner, A., and J. Spaak. 2023. Rangeland Health Assessment of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Nature Resource Report NPS/THRO/NRR – 2023/XXXX. National Park Service. Fort Collins, CO (In press, not yet final).
- Todhunter, P. E. and R. DeVries. 2021. “Climate Change Assessment using Spatial Climate Datasets: Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South Unit), 1895–2019.” Climate Research 85: 91–106. Internet website: https://doi.org/10.3354/cr01672
- TRPL (Theodore Roosevelt Public Library). 2022. Theodore Roosevelt Public Library, Our Progress Internet website: https://www.trlibrary.com/the-project/our-progress/.
What article on this website is being cited? - USFWS (US Fish and Wildlife Service). 2023. IPaC – Information for Planning and Consultation. Database access. Internet website: https://ipac.ecosphere.fws.gov/location/index. IPaC from August 1st, 2023.
Must have a gov login to access.
Our friends at OWHO also shared some GREAT points with us that can be included in your own comment letter. We will share that in a NEW blog post tomorrow.
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of talking to Carol Walker! Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates and our discussion on the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park will be featured in her Wild Hoofbeats podcast next week! We will share the direct link when she sends it to us! Thank you again Carol! I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us and help us raise awareness about the current plight of these amazing wild horses!!
Last Friday, our friends at Equine Collaborative International hosted us in a Zoom to answer questions about the wild horses of TRNP, the current public comment period and how to make an impactful comment. There were so many GREAT questions that were asked! You can watch the whole talk here: https://us06web.zoom.us/rec/share/HqLnLNhyI34mryNLPKwki1TBDw8NAXnruvTZY9ZDh1ddtvA3VnPKsx95l9CUfg.Etg52MEztux3yPGy
Please enter passcode: k!1qDdXU
This Friday – October 20th, our friend Heather from Save Our Wild Horses, will be hosting us for a zoom! We will have a short presentation and be available to answer your questions. This event is FREE, but you do need to email Heather to get the link for the talk. You can email Heather at: kaya97524@yahoo.com
We have another podcast coming up soon too that we will share!
Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates has been invited to participate in a couple of community Trunk or Treat events! This will be a GREAT way to get the message out to thousands of people! We are grateful to our local community businesses in Dickinson that have donated candy to us for this event: Cashwise, Runnings & Walmart! We also ordered ANOTHER batch of stickers to hand out. Wait until you see our spooky plans for these events!
Please email us at info@chwha.org if you would like us to send you any promotional materials!
We are truly grateful for these opportunities that will help us reach a larger group of people who will hopefully join us in the Fight for the Spirit of the Badlands!
THANK YOU to all of you who help us in so many ways! There is A LOT of ground to cover, and we can’t do it all. We truly appreciate all of the help and support we get from each one of you!
Just wait until you see what some of our other friends are working on for us 😉
And – just in case this lovely Beatles song is now stuck in your head….https://youtu.be/0C58ttB2-Qg?si=aLCTrele97mQLpMI
Have a GREAT day!