Hello and Happy Thursday to everyone! We are continuing our conversation about the proposed federal legislation for the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. This is the 4th blog in this series. The previous blogs in this series can be found on the homepage of our website at www.chwha.org
Today, we are going to talk about what we feel is probably the biggest piece missing from the legislation as it is written.
If you remember back in the first blog in this series, we asked you to look at the Shackleford Banks Wild Horses Protection Act. This was passed into law in 1998. This piece of legislation protects the wild horses in Cape Lookout National Seashore, which is another park within the National Park Service.
We made Senator Hoeven’s office aware of this legislation over the years, and his office has stated that they modeled the Theodore Roosevelt Wild Horse Protection Act after the Shackleford legislation.
One KEY point in the Shackleford legislation is this:
Within 180 days after enactment of this subsection, the Secretary shall enter into an agreement with the Foundation for Shackleford Horses (a nonprofit corporation established under the laws of the State of North Carolina), or another qualified nonprofit entity, to provide for management of free roaming horses in the seashore. The agreement shall—
“(A) provide for cost-effective management of the horses while ensuring that natural resources within the seashore are not adversely impacted; and
“(B) allow the authorized entity to adopt any of those horses that the Secretary removes from the seashore
This key point is missing from the legislation written for the TRNP wild horses.
Why is this important?
Some of the biggest issues with the management of the wild horses at TRNP throughout the history of the park include the lack of accountability on the part of the park to the public they serve. It was also noted throughout the last ND Legislative Session that there appears to be a lack of equine knowledge among the TRNP staff. This is even more alarming given the fact that this park has done more research on this herd than most other herds on the western range or in other national parks.
We at Chasing Horses Wild Horse Advocates KNEW that federal legislation was next on our “To Do” list for these horses. With that in mind, we worked with our state legislators to try to form a wild horse working group to help the park manage the wild horses.
As you know, that bill failed in our state legislature. Our legislators felt that there was no need as we now have Doug Burgum as Secretary of the Interior. This is the department that oversees The National Park Service.
HOWEVER…
We have not given up on our goal to get a working group formed. We have been actively working on the formation of this group since the bill failed. This is something we have discussed with Senator Hoeven’s office, other members of Congress as well as the new TRNP park superintendent, Superintendent Daniels.
This working group is something, that as the Shackleford legislation states, can be done at an agency level with Theodore Roosevelt National Park itself.
When I spoke with Superintendent Daniels about this, I emphasized that CHWHA has already spoken with local university equine study programs, as well as local veterinarians, historians and people in the commerce industry in North Dakota. We have qualified people interested in being a part of a group like this. We also shared that we do not believe that this group should be made up solely of advocates like us. This group needs to be made up of people who will be guided by science, history and commerce to do what is best for this herd, for the park and for the state of North Dakota – especially the community of Medora.
Why wouldn’t the park welcome help from local and knowledgeable college students, especially at a time when looming federal cuts continue to threaten park staffing?
Why wouldn’t the park welcome the opportunity to work with the community and the state of North Dakota?
The Superintendent seemed open to the idea but also said that we need to see what happens with the federal legislation.
She also asked a question that many of you may be asking too: What about the other groups? She specifically asked, “In your perfect world, where do you see them in all this?”
I said very honestly: “I don’t.”
I explained that I am not asking for exclusivity with the park. I understand she has to work with the other groups as well as other organizations with interests outside of the wild horses.
I told her: “The difference between us and them is that they ALL advocate for YOU – Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Which we seen very clearly about a year ago when the park rounded up the wild horses and ALL these other groups and organizations supported those actions.”
I continued: “It is fine to advocate for Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We have and will continue to gladly also advocate for this park. The difference is that we will NOT advocate for the park to the detriment of the wild horses and THAT is the big difference between us and the other groups.”
I DID tell her that I would be happy to invite interested members of other groups to have representation on this working group. THIS is something we have asked for from each of these other groups repeatedly over the last 3 years with no success.
Again, this working group DOES NOT need more advocates – it needs more people with science, history and commerce backgrounds.
What will this group do?
It will help take care of the other issues we have with this legislation that will contribute to the proper management of this herd – such as birth control issues, assist with removals (if necessary) and help provide transparency to the public. This working group can help rebuild trust with the public.
There are just a few other small points we will cover tomorrow when we wrap up this series, so be sure to check back.
Thank you for your support and have a great day!
We still have some of our CHWHA 2026 calendars! Grab yours while you can here: https://chasinghorses.com/products/chwha-13-month-2026-calendar
Leave a Reply