Hello and Happy Friday! I wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU to all of you for your well wishes. I am starting to feel better so we will be more regular in our posting here and on social media.

We do ask that as we continue this series on GonaCon that you check out the following working links:

You can learn more about GonaCon on our website: https://chwha.org/gonacon/
We had a Horse Talk with Dr. Dan Baker in 2023 – this is an extremely insightful talk: https://youtu.be/kdLHvgVmIuw  
In January, Ginger Fedak spoke at our virtual summit and shared scientific data about GonaCon and PZP: https://youtu.be/H0iigWwM9WE
Lastly, there is a video recording from a fertility conference that Dr. Dan Banker spoke at.  You can view this in our Resource Library here: https://chwha.org/library/

The NEPA process – National Environmental Policy Act is (at the current moment) a very strong set of environmental laws that basically say that IF a federal agency is proposing an action, it requires that agency to “Take a hard look” at any environmental impacts their proposed action will have before they take action.  NEPA also requires public input in most cases.

NEPA reviews can be done one of three ways:

1. A Categorical Exclusion (CE) – this means that the agency believes that their proposed action will NOT have an impact on the environment or population being targeted.  Since the agency believes that there will be no environmental impact on their proposed action, no public input is required.
2. An Environmental Assessment (EA) – like we saw in 2022 when the park started their management planning process. This requires public input, as we seen with the 2022 management planning process. 
3. An Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) – this requires more stringent review of the proposed action than the EA.  This also requires public input. 

In 2020, then Superintendent Wendy Ross, signed a Categorical Exclusion (CE) that stated that the park would be treating EVERY female horse age 8 months old and up with GonaCon.  You can read the CE for yourself here:

CE’s DO NOT require public input. 

Another thing is, CE’s are not good FOREVER.  So, in January, we asked the park about any NEW CE’s that have been signed since 2020.  The park just shared new information this week letting us know that there have been a couple CE’s signed with relation to different aspects of wild horse management. 

We did discuss the CE with Blake McCann back in October of 2024.  We explained that we, along with our lawyers, KNOW that a CE was NOT appropriate for choosing to give GonaCon to EVERY female horse.  This action without question will have an impact on the herd.  Blake, of course, argued that the park felt it was appropriate. 

Our lawyers are reviewing the validity of the CE along with current actions by the park to continue the absurd use of GonaCon on this herd.

As a reminder, you can read all the blogs in this series here:

Part 1: https://chwha.org/2025/04/23/gonacon-and-the-trnp-herd-part-1/

Part 2: https://chwha.org/2025/04/24/gonacon-and-the-trnp-herd-part-2/

Part 3: https://chwha.org/2025/04/25/gonacon-and-the-trnp-herd-part-3/

Part 4: https://chwha.org/2025/04/29/gonacon-and-the-trnp-herd-part-4/

We have one more blog in this series – we will share that on Sunday

Thank you for your support and have a great day!

---