Hello and Happy Wednesday! We made it to the middle of another crazy week!
Our busyness continues!
We were at the North Dakota Capitol building yesterday. We arrived at just the right time to be able to meet with ND House Majority Leader, Mike Lefor. We also met with Senator Josh Boschee. Both men have been helping us with our 2 pieces of legislation we have being entered into the 2025 North Dakota Legislative Session.
As a reminder, state legislators in North Dakota, along with those in Montana, Nevada and Texas – hold their legislative sessions ONCE EVERY TWO YEARS – unlike the other states where their legislators meet yearly.
Also, our North Dakota legislators expect to hear a record 1400 pieces of legislation from now through May 2nd when they have to adjourn. It is CRITICAL that we don’t let our 2 pieces of legislation get lost in the sea of those 1400 other pieces.
To update you on what is happening with our legislation:
One piece is a resolution. We are going to change the wording a bit and then that will be reintroduced into legal counsel. Legal counsel has to look at EVERY piece of legislation and make sure that what is being proposed is within existing laws in North Dakota.
We have already passed through that part with the second piece of legislation, that is the bill asking that the state form a wild horse working group to help the park manage the wild horses.
The legislation has changed slightly from what we submitted originally, and we are working on determining who the sponsor will be as well as the legislators that will co-sponsor the legislation. That also means determining if our legislation will start in the House or the Senate.
If our legislation starts on the House side, everything has to be submitted by January 20th. If it starts on the Senate side, everything has to be submitted by January 27th.
A nail-biting time for me for sure!
I would like to say that I would breathe easier once we get this all figured out and submitted, but then there is testimony and contacting legislators, op-eds and letters to the editor to write.
The next few months will just be stressful in general as we continue to move through this legislative process!
As a reminder, we have set up a NEW Horse Talk for next week on the 2025 ND Legislative Session and how to submit your testimony. This event is FREE but we do ask that you register in advance. You can sign up for this Horse Talk here: https://secure.everyaction.com/c6_951Iv7kCr9Vg6JpVBxA2
In addition to all this, we are also meeting with our new governor’s staff. We met with Governor Armstrong’s team a few weeks ago. We are communicating via email to follow up.
You may remember, Kelly Armstrong was our ND Congressman. Since he is now our governor, that means we have a new congresswoman.
TODAY, I got to speak with Congresswoman Fedorchak’s staff.
They are still getting settled into their offices and today’s talk was just an introduction meeting. The person I spoke with also worked for Senator Hoeven’s office. He is aware of who we are, the issues with the horses, and how engaged Senator Hoeven remains on this issue.
He asked me to walk him through what has happened/is happening as if he knew nothing. I spent a decent amount of time explaining the last 3 years – the Environmental Assessment, the October roundup, the aggressive use of GonaCon and the collars. We also talked a good deal about the lack of transparency with the public from this park, including the way they blatantly ignore our FOIA requests. He agreed that we are not wrong for asking for transparency from this federal agency.
We also discussed the state legislation, which he thought sounded like a good idea – generally speaking.
He asked that we keep them updated on things, including what is happening at a state level.
As I said, this was just a meeting for us to formally introduce ourselves and start a relationship with our new Congresswoman.
Why is this important?
We discussed federal protection for the herd, and if/when Senator Hoeven introduces federal legislation for the TRNP wild horses, just like with our state legislation, it will get a vote in the Senate and then it also has to pass the House.
Every time we have meet with members of Congress from other states, they ALWAYS want to know where our ND member of Congress stands on this issue. It would also be helpful if she is able to introduce the legislation on the House side.
No matter what, it is really important to have good relationships with your state and federal legislators. Just because our North Dakota legislators were NOT in session the last 2 years, does NOT mean that I have not been talking to and meeting with them.
This has helped shape my personal presentation for our virtual summit at the end of this month: Make It an Issue: Building a Relationship with Your Legislators. You can sign up for my presentation here: https://secure.everyaction.com/KfGzwLrx8kS5ruzp3NXvcw2
As a reminder, we have listed all the sign-up links for all 31 presentations from 35 DIFFERENT speakers on our website: https://chwha.org/2025-wild-horse-summit/
This event is FREE and you are welcome to sign up for as many of the speakers as you would like!
This summit has really taken on a life of its own! We continue to have additional speakers reach out to us and ask to be a part of this summit! It is hard to say no when there are so many fascinating people coming forward! Keep checking back for speaking additions! We are also highlighting individual speakers on our social media posts every day from now through the start of the summit!
This week, we also shared a blog inviting you to come to our social media pages and engage with each other! For fun, we have decided to do giveaways for the next 4 weeks and engaging on social media is the way to win! You can find the details in our blog post from earlier this week here: https://chwha.org/2025/01/13/can-you-join-us/
We are also reaching out to our federal legislators asking them to be a part of this summit! Senator Hoeven’s office stated that he would share a pre-recorded video. We have reached out to other offices and are starting to hear back from them – so stay tuned!
I want to take a moment to clarify something someone said on one of Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s Facebook posts.
As we are working on getting much needed federal protection for the TRNP wild horses, we are NOT asking for the TRNP wild horses to be included in the Wild and Free Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act!
A little history: The National Park Service, as an agency, went to court asking to be excluded from the Wild and Free Roaming Wild Horse & Burro Act. They won that case. Wild horses in national parks are managed at the discretion of individual park management and are NOT included in the protections for wild horses under the Wild and Free Roaming Wild Horse and Burro Act.
The federal legislation we are working on will be exclusive to the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Holly will begin working on that soon! That is a much longer process than the state legislation we are currently working on. We all know federal wheels turn MUCH slower! We do believe that we have all of the right people in all the right places to FINALLY make this happen.
NOTHING happens on its own – so we keep working, meeting and fighting for these historic wild horses that call Theodore Roosevelt National Park home to FINALLY have the protection they deserve! If we start being quiet, that makes our legislators believe that there is no longer an issue with the wild horses in TRNP. We have to make sure they know there will be until they FINALLY get the federal protection they deserve.
More than anything, we are working hard to make sure that we NEVER have a repeat of the last 3 years, where the freedom of North Dakota’s ONLY wild horse herd is threatened – again!
As a reminder, NO OTHER ORGANIZATIONS ARE WORKING WITH US ON STATE OR FEDERAL LEGISLATION FOR THE TRNP WILD HORSES! This legislation is expected to cost us $20,000 over the next few years!
Our largest fundraiser of the year has started! Giving Hearts Day! Giving Hearts Day is February 13th, but early giving started this week! We have set a Giving Hearts Day goal of $10,000!
The first part of the fundraiser requires us to raise matching funds of at least $3,000. Since our goal is $10,000, our matching fund’s goal is $5,000. We have raised $4,834 so far! We need to raise $166 to meet our matching fund’s goal.
There are a few ways you can donate to us for Giving Hearts Day:
You can donate to help us raise the additional $166 we need to meet our matching funds goal. That donation can be made here: https://secure.everyaction.com/KrELigjJckyX7vqDTjTdzg2
You can donate to our Giving Hearts Day fundraiser directly here: https://app.givingheartsday.org/#/charity/1669
You can also mail us a check! Please add for Giving Hearts Day or GHD in the memo section. Checks can be mailed to us at:
CHWHA
P.O. Box 3562
Dickinson, ND 58602
You can learn more about Giving Hearts Day on our website: https://chwha.org/giving-hearts-day/
You can also visit our SW ND Giving Hearts Day Collaborative Facebook page to learn more about the 17 nonprofit organizations we are working with in our community to make sure we ALL have an awesome Giving Hearts Day: https://www.facebook.com/swndgivingheartsday
Lastly, Jen is getting closer to completing our website make-over! Please make sure you take a moment to check it out! We also recently added a page that talks about the park’s aggressive use of GonaCon on this herd along with scientific research, FOIA records and other articles that explain why the aggressive use of this drug does NOT sit well with us – or any other true wild horse advocate for that matter! Senator Hoeven’s office also remains concerned. He told a local reporter at the end of last year that they will continue to keep an eye on what is happening in this park with their use of GonaCon. You can view the GonaCon page here: https://chwha.org/gonacon/
I promised I would keep you updated on things happening in our little CHWHA world. As you can see, there is always A TON happening behind the scenes at CHWHA! There is so much more we will be sharing – when the time is right – so as always, we ask that you stay tuned!
Thank you for your continued support and have a great day!
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