Hello and Happy Wednesday to everyone!
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. In light of that, I wanted to let each and every one of you know how truly thankful I am to have all of you fighting with us for the Spirit of the Badlands!
I have said this before and feel that it is worth saying again.
First, our nonprofit organization was born because so many people came to us wanting to change the constant culling of 4-month-old to 3-year-old horses twice a year, every year and to put a stop to what ended up being 11 years of experimentation on our mares with GonaCon.
When we took the leap and created Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates. Our nonprofit lawyer ingrained in us that nonprofit organizations belong to the community they serve.
I say that because Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates (CHWHA) does not belong to me, or our board. It belongs to each and every one of you. Every single one of you are an important part of what makes CHWHA work. Likewise, the successes that we have had in this fight come from the hard work of all of us that belong to this community.
I reiterate this whenever anyone thanks “ME” for what I am doing. I ALWAYS turn that “me” statement into a “WE” because Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates is nothing without all of you.
I am sharing this with you today because WE only have a few days left to get people to send in their comments to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
WE have done A LOT of work since September 25th – heck, we have done A LOT of work since March of 2022!
Now it is time to make sure that everyone possible is weighing in on the future management of the wild horses that call Theodore Roosevelt National Park home in our LAST public comment period for this Draft EA process.
So first, have you sent in your comment letter? Have you had your family, friends and coworkers send in their comment letters? Remember, your comment ONLY counts when you submit it through the Park’s planning website: https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=167&projectID=105110&documentID=132035 or when you have it postmarked by November 24, 2023, and mail it to: Superintendent, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, P.O. Box 7, Medora, ND 58645.
CHWHA does have a sample comment letter that you can use to personalize your own letter: https://secure.everyaction.com/9pae2T4Ud0SItoaoX10DmA2
Second, WE received a very nice complement yesterday.
Never in my life would I believe that I would be able to reach out and easily talk to people like Dr. Castle McLaughlin, Frank Kuntz, Jen Britton, Ross MacPhee, Craig Downer, Eric Molvar, Scott Beckstead, Sandy Sharkey, Suzanne Roy, Kerry Ferguson along with so many others, including an amazing man named Steve Martens who lives in Fargo, ND.
I have talked about Steve before. Steve is fighting hard for history to be preserved. For Steve, that history includes the wild horses in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Steve has been emailing me quite often. I feel like we are pen pals! I truly hope we get to meet in person some day!
Steve is also fighting hard for a proper Section 106 Review process for the TRNP wild horses that is happening with the North Dakota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). CHWHA also submitted a petition and documentation. We also talked about this in an earlier blog post: https://chwha.org/2023/10/16/historical-preservation-petition/
Yesterday, Steve sent his comment letter to me to share if I chose. His comment letter is written very eloquently as he pleads with the Park, as we all are, for the preservation of this herd.
Steve’s comment letter was attached to an incredible email that brought me to tears ~ in a good way!
I want to share that with all of you. Again, the email was written to ME but the message is for the WE that makes up Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates (that is ALL of you 😉 )
Please enjoy this letter and honestly, pat yourselves on the back. We have accomplished some pretty incredible things in the last (almost) 2 years!
We have A LOT more work to do and I sincerely hope that all of you will stay in this fight for the long haul. These horses need ALL of us!
Steve’s email is copied and pasted in its entirety below. I have also attached his comment letter for you to read after his email.
Thank you for your support and have a wonderful day.
P.S. Don’t forget to send in your comment letter to the Park!
No need to reply until the heat of battle is settled a bit. I just wanted to get this copy of my NPS/TRNP comment letter onto your desktop. Maybe you can re-visit it after the Friday deadline. I put my paper copy in the mail to Medora today.
Feel free to share any of my comment letter material with anyone you think may find it helpful. As soon as I hit “Send” to you I will send digital copies of my comment letter to Bill Peterson and Lisa Steckler at SHPO/SHSND, and to Patrick Springer who has developed such remarkable understanding of the issues that he can share with Forum readers.
After our Zoom conference last evening I reworked some of my comments in light of SHPO’s eventual need for “significant heritage landscape” information from NPS they can act on. Knowing how well Bill Peterson does his job and understands preservation law, I was reminded that he will be getting mostly useless “boiled down” information from NPS. I’m hopeful SHPO will seek out informed perspectives from many other sources. In my experience SHPO takes public comment seriously, unlike NPS who treat it as a perfunctory task to check off.
Last night’s conversations about humanities, social and behavioral science perspectives on landscape meaning struck me as the main thing SHPO will need to know that is not provided by NPS. Getting NPS to acknowledge those perspectives is like finding hen’s teeth when they would just rather fly a helicopter in and kill off the horses. Kind of a SWAT team approach to landscape management.
Again, I’m mindful of how incredibly busy you are just now, but I have to reaffirm what Castle said last night, about how truly helpful, constructive, and effective you are as the best advocate those horses could ever have! You bring unbelievable energy and hopefulness to this trying process. All your comments and focusing questions help the rest of us with bringing our disparate thoughts together.
Being greeted daily by photos of the horses in each of your messages invariably lifts my spirit by reminding me what we are fighting for. The expert, informed judgment of brilliant, insightful people like Castle McLaughlin, Jenn Britton and others spark constructive ideas for others of us.
Chris, you and your support group are the most effective, energetic, positive and hopeful, life-affirming advocates for heritage I’ve met in my 50-years of experience learning from North Dakota people and landscapes. Your comments and ideas are always so constructive and appropriate to our purpose. It’s an honor and privilege to be involved in this important work.
Please get a bit of much-deserved rest after the current battle. My wife and I are scrambling to find someplace we can squeeze out a small contribution from our meager resources.
Peace and once again THANKS for being the right person at the right time.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Steve and JoAnna Martens
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