DC Recap Part 1

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
~ Mahatma Gandhi

Hello and Happy Saturday!

We left Washington DC early yesterday morning. We spent 2 jam packed days lobbying Congress for wild horses everywhere and also having meetings with several offices including Senator John Hoeven and The National Park Service (NPS) Office. The NPS meeting included Deputy Director Frank Lands and Malcolm McGeary who is the Senior Advisor to the Director. Both meetings were insightful and well worth the trip to Washington DC for our organization. Our other Congressional meetings were extremely helpful as well, and we will recap those in the next few days.

Today, we want to talk about our meetings with Hoeven’s office and the NPS specifically. We also want to take a moment to say thank you to Holly Bice from Bice Policy Group for being with us for all of our meetings on Thursday. The knowledge and support that she gave to our meetings definitely helped enhance our meetings.

Our first meeting on Thursday was with Senator John Hoeven’s office. Senator Hoeven, as you are aware, has been a key player in our fight to save this herd of wild horses. A big part of our meeting was to see if we can continue to count on his support as our critical advocacy work continues.

In both our meetings with Senator Hoeven’s office and the NPS, we shared the following documents: The NPS March 2024 report, the list of mares that have received GonaCon from 2009-2024, the report from the Botstiber Institute, the petition asking that the collars be removed from our horses, our current FOIA request and ALL of the various resolutions that have been passed over the last 2 years in the state of North Dakota. We also shared our newly drafted North Dakota State Legislation with Senator Hoeven’s office.

As a side note: our state legislation is now with North Dakota’s legislative council. This is a necessary step so that they look it over and make any necessary changes to the legislation so that it properly connects with current ND state laws. Our North Dakota State Legislators are still waiting for their committee assignments. We have spoken to several of them, and they all seem to support this legislation, but need to make sure their committee assignments do not conflict with this legislation.

This legislation has also received support from Governor Burgum’s office. You will also remember, as newly elected Governor Armstrong campaigned for governor, we asked him if we could count on the same support from his administration. He assured us we could. We do plan to set up meetings with his staff once they officially take office to make sure we still have his promised support.

While I cannot share all of the details of our meeting with Senator Hoeven’s office, I can say that we were reassured many times during our meeting that the Senator remains engaged on this issue and is willing to do what he can to help make sure that a genetically viable herd of wild horses remains in the park. There are several ways that he can continue to help, as he has shown us over the last few years.

His office seems to be in regular contact with the NPS office in DC. We also learned over the last few years that there were several ways that he can work with legislation to help our TRNP wild horses. All of those options are also still things he is willing to do, when the timing is right.

We will be proactive on legislative issues. This is where we feel that having Holly at these meetings was crucial. She now knows what she needs to work on with respect to Senator Hoeven’s office and also with our state legislators to help support Senator Hoeven and his staff in their key role in gaining permanent protection for our TRNP wild horses.

PLEASE NOTE: Federal legislation can be a very long process. This can literally take YEARS to complete. CHWHA is prepared to see this through to the end.

Later Thursday afternoon, we headed over to the Department of the Interior to meet with Deputy Director, Frank Lands and Malcolm McGeary. For clarity: Frank Lands, the Deputy Director of the NPS, is a senior executive who leads day-to-day operations of the NPS. He serves as Acting Director in NPS Director Chuck Sams’s absence.

I share that because the NPS did NOT simply give us a meeting with “just anyone” and we believe that speaks to their level of engagement in our TRNP wild horses.

We walked into the meeting with the intention of not only sharing our concerns with the NPS, but also to restate our commitment to work with the park, in any way we can, that helps support the management of a healthy and viable herd of horses. We were at the meeting not only as advocates for the horses, but also as business owners and members of the community who are also impacted by decisions made by the NPS. We feel this is important because there are many layers to our valid concerns.

As we have stated many times, we LOVE Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We LOVE the park for more than just the wild horses. It is a beautiful place that we believe everyone ABSOLUTLEY should experience. The park is rich in so much history – history that is important to the state of North Dakota, Native American history, Theodore Roosevelt’s time in North Dakota and history that helped create the small town of Medora, that depends on those visitors to TRNP for its survival.

My husband and I, as small business owners AND as advocates for these horses, stand as ready as we ever have to help support the park in whatever ways we can. This can mean helping to provide food and water/Gatorade to first responders during wildfires in the park or something as simple as making donations to them for gift bags for presenters who come to hold special events in the park. We have personally done both over the years.

We feel that we clearly and calmly stated our concerns with Deputy Director Lands. We do believe that he listened attentively.

We reiterated several times that we KNOW there is no need for the collars, and we feel that this is really a very simple way that the park can start to rebuild trust with the public by taking these collars off. Other items we discussed will take time to work through. We restated that advocates have valid concerns about the collars and this is something that can be done now to start a new relationship between the park and the public moving in a positive direction.

After sharing all of the information that we did with Frank Lands, here are a few of our takeaways:

They were NOT aware of the collars that were placed on the horses.
I do not think that they were aware of how aggressive the park has been with their use of GonaCon. I DO believe that our short Botstiber report DID help open their eyes and give credit to our concerns.
Frank Lands admitted that there was an opportunity for the NPS to be more transparent with the public.

At the end of our meeting, he said to us (not a direct quote) that there are 431 National Parks on 85 million acres of land. The NPS spends A LOT of time on Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

He said they spend so much time on this ONE park because they understand it is important to North Dakota. It is important to our legislators. He said the park is interested because the people are interested.

I want to insert here – THANK YOU to all of you. 431 National Parks throughout the US and our collective elevated voices have let the National Park Service KNOW – WITHOUT QUESTION – how important this ONE park is to us! Give yourselves a well-deserved pat on the back!

While Deputy Director Lands admitted he was not as well versed in some of these current management practices, he did commit to looking into our concerns. Since the TRNP wild horses is a topic that they are engage in on a regular basis, he also told Regional Director Bert Frost, to send THE BEST person he has to TRNP to manage the park as they continue to look for a new permanent replacement for the superintendent position. We will share more on this and who we were specifically told will be coming to TRNP in a later blog.

What he said at the end of the meeting, we do believe was a wholehearted statement and reiterated his commitment to work with the public:

Deputy Director Lands said that the National Park Service is charged with protecting natural and cultural resources. They have policies and procedures in place to make sure that is at the core of their work. He added that the enjoyment, inspiration and education of current and future populations was just as important as their ecological and cultural missions. He admitted that sometimes the NPS loses sight of that.

He also told us that he appreciated us coming in. He stated again how much they have been dealing with the issues at TRNP and said that it helps to know the people that their decisions are impacting. He said that sometimes their day to day operations can get to be a paper exercise for them. Lands stated that us coming in talking about and explaining why we are passionate about the horses and why they are important to the community helps to reinforce the nature of what they do at the National Park Service.

He stated several times during our meeting that we were making what he felt were reasonable requests for transparency from TRNP.

So, what now?

With respect to Deputy Director Lands, we walked away knowing that our collective voices were heard. Our concerns were validated, and we have a commitment from him to look into our concerns from GonaCon to the collars.

CHWHA will come to the table with the new interim superintendent with the same offer to work with TRNP park management to find the best management solutions for the wild horses we all love.

The next few months will be very busy and we will need your help to raise awareness and get support for our state legislation. We will share updates and Calls to Action as the need arises.

One last note…

I have heard from many of you about President-elect Trump’s appointment of North Dakota Governor, Doug Burgum, as Secretary of the Interior.

I woke up to this news on my birthday Friday morning along with a litany of text messages.

WHAT A BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

I have been asked my thoughts and feelings on this by all of you as well as some reporters.

I cannot help but believe that this only helps our fight. It DOES NOT mean we can become complacent by any means! I have to believe in my heart of hearts that no matter what happens in Washington, DC, that Governor Burgum will never forget where he came from or how important these horses are to the state that has been his home for most of his life. I do also hope that this means that his administration will have a more respectful and open relationship with wild horse advocates everywhere.

I am also cautiously optimistic because we all thought that having a Native American as the head of the DOI would be a good thing.

I think the most important take away is that no matter who sits in that seat, or any seat in our government, we cannot ever stop pushing forward and fighting for the things we feel are right and the change we would like to see in our world. Our stance on things that are important to us CANNOT change based on how easy or hard the fight in front of us may seem, or the people that we believe will stand with us.

As great as we believe this news CAN be, CHWHA’s fight for the TRNP wild horses, and wild horses everywhere, continues.

We hope that each one of you will continue to walk along with us because no matter what, there is no easy way to get to where we are going. We just have to keep moving forward one step at a time.

Thank you for your continued support!

Please consider helping to support our continued advocacy work. We have a lot of work to do and can’t do it without your help. You can make your tax-deductible donation here: https://secure.everyaction.com/cBmDbRA6cUuzERpShcQOCg2

You can also donate items to our next silent auction at the beginning of December here: https://chwha.betterworld.org/donate-an-item?_gl=1*1cxnqaj*_gcl_au*NDc4NTA4MzAyLjE3Mjk5ODI5NzkuMjEwNTY1NDc5LjE3Mjk5ODI5ODIuMTcyOTk4NDIyMw..