“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’”
~ Erma Bombeck

I have a dear friend who keeps telling me that I should stop working so hard at advocating for the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

She tells me I should celebrate our win. We DO have federal protection moving through Congress for these horses, and that legislation would guarantee that at least 150 horses will remain part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

She also believes I need to focus more on my health—to do what I need to do to heal and not allow the stress of all of this to keep setting me back.

I love my friend dearly, and I appreciate her concern for me.

I ponder her words often.

Am I nit-picking too much?

Should I just leave things alone?

It does suck to constantly feel like you are pushing a boulder uphill. And the obstacles that keep getting placed in our way certainly don’t make that hill any easier to climb.

But then I remember horses like Chubby.

This week on our Facebook page, we are highlighting Stallion Trooper’s band. As I have been looking through photos of this band and creating posts for the next two weeks, I have been reminded of so many other stories—and so many other horses—that this check-in with Trooper’s band will probably take us down quite a few rabbit holes.

One of the horses in Trooper’s band is Mare Daisy (pictured below).

Her mom was the late Mare Chubby, pictured in this post.

I would say Chubby is at the very core of how I got started advocating for this herd.

Chubby was part of the late Stallion Cloud’s band. She was one of the mares who was NOT part of the GonaCon experiment, meaning she was allowed to have babies year after year.

Every single one of those babies—with the exception of Mare Daisy—was captured and sold over the years.

The Chubby and Cloud combination was also known to produce lethal white foals. This is a horrific and brutally painful way for a foal to die. There is no cure, and affected foals generally die within the first few days of life.

IF the park had been managing these horses differently instead of experimenting on them, I believe Chubby should have been one of the mares given fertility control. She was older—17 when she died in 2018—and was known to have lethal white foals.

At the same time, arguably, some of her healthy offspring SHOULD have remained in the park to carry her genetics forward.

Instead, nearly all of them were removed.

In 2018, Chubby gave birth to a beautiful filly we named Miracle.

We were in the park the day that Miracle was born. Cloud’s band was across the river, and we could see that a new baby had been born. We could also account for every other member of Cloud’s band except Chubby.

Having just given birth, there was nowhere else Chubby would—or should—have been except beside her newborn foal.

It turned out that Chubby had died from complications while foaling.

Miracle survived for five days.

Without her mother to nurse her, Miracle eventually died too.

My heart was broken.

For two years before that moment, I had listened to other groups and photographers who document this herd—and I intentionally say document, because documenting these horses and advocating for them are two very different things.

For decades, there has been far too much complacency and a repeated willingness to accept the park’s management decisions without question. In my opinion, that lack of meaningful pushback helped create the very situation we are fighting to correct today.

To be clear: we are talking about a history of management decisions involving these horses that stretches back nearly 80 years—and for far too long, many of the people and groups who followed this herd simply accepted those decisions rather than challenging them.

That history includes repeated helicopter roundups and removals, healthy horses going to slaughter, the GonaCon fertility-control experiment, the removal and sale of young horses, and management decisions that contributed to an increasingly older herd with too few younger horses remaining to replace those that are inevitably going to die. The horses are STILL facing these same issues today. 

And through all of it, again and again, I heard the same thing:

“The park knows what they are doing. We don’t question the park.”

But I did question the park.

And I believe those questions needed to be asked.

There was also plenty of fear-mongering. I was told that if I kept asking questions—which I believe I am absolutely entitled to do as a member of the tax-paying public—the park might get upset and simply get rid of all the horses.

But I had questions.

We had a predominantly older herd. At the same time, the park was aggressively using GonaCon while capturing and selling young horses between approximately four months and three years old.

My concern seemed pretty simple:

If the older horses continued to die and the younger horses continued to be removed, eventually, what would be left?

Still, I kept hearing:

“The park knows what they are doing.”

For two years, I waited to be shown how my concerns were wrong.

Then Chubby and Miracle died.

And I wondered:

What would have happened if I had started advocating harder, earlier?

Would it have made a difference for Chubby and Miracle?

I will never know.

Every single time another mare died giving birth after Chubby, I was reminded of the need for better management of these horses.

And NOT ONLY for the horses living in the park today.

For the ones still to come.

I LOVE being able to look at Stallion Cody and see his dad, Stallion Red Face, looking back at me.

I couldn’t change things for Red Face.

But can we change things for Cody and others like him?

Yes, we can. And we already have.

We helped stop the park’s most recent plan to eliminate this herd in 2021.

We worked with our state legislators to pass legislation supporting federal protection for these horses.

We worked with our federal legislators as legislation was introduced in Congress.

And we have built some incredible relationships along the way.

One of those relationships walked into our shop this weekend.

I asked my North Dakota state senator if he had had any luck getting through to Congresswoman Fedorchak’s office.

“Absolutely!” he told me.

I went on to talk with him about my concerns with S.1377, the Theodore Roosevelt National Park Wild Horse Protection Act. I also shared my frustration that we have been unable to get a response from our congresswoman’s office.

He told me he would see what he could do and gave me a few suggestions for connecting with her office.

I jokingly told him that if we can get this legislation right NOW, it will save me from having to bother him about the horses during the next legislative session!

It took A LOT of work to get here.

We don’t just show up “when it matters.”

I can promise you that I personally show up for these horses every single day, in one way or another.

And my friend is right about something else.

I DO need to be conscious of my health.

There are days when I am exhausted in ways my brain simply cannot comprehend. I know I have to listen to my body and take care of myself.

But taking care of myself does not mean I have stopped caring about what happens to these horses.

We will continue working to get an audience with Congresswoman Fedorchak’s office, and we will keep you updated on any developments.

But Congresswoman Fedorchak needs to hear from more than just us.

She needs to hear from YOU.

We are working on launching a postcard campaign, and over the last week we have asked for your help so we can order postcards and postage as we finalize the details.

If you have already donated, THANK YOU!

If you haven’t, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help support this campaign.

The amount we raise will directly impact how many postcards we can print and mail to Congresswoman Fedorchak and other members of Congress.

You can make a donation through our website here:

https://secure.everyaction.com/pIMNkwr21021HO0xWm0UOg2

You can also make a donation through PayPal here:

https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XNYNCNVLTULGC

As for me…

I can’t carry another regret like the one I carry when I think about Chubby.

I can’t look back someday and wonder if I could have done more—but simply chose not to because it was hard, exhausting, frustrating or inconvenient.

So I will continue doing everything I can to make sure the wild horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park receive THE BEST federal protection and THE BEST management plan possible.

Not just some protection.

Not just enough protection to say we accomplished something.

The best protection we can possibly give them.

They deserve that.

The generations of horses still to come deserve that.

And all of us who love and follow this herd—and who, as members of the tax-paying public, have a voice in how our national parks and wildlife are managed—deserve that too.

Maybe that is my answer to my friend.

Someday, when I reach the end of my life, I don’t want to wonder whether I had something left to give and chose not to give it.

I want to be able to say:

I used everything you gave me.

And I know I still have a lot left to give! I hope all of you do too because our work is not done yet!

Thank you, as always, for standing with us and with these horses.

Have a great day!

P.S. Please check back later this week! We will have a NEW Call to Action for you!

Also please follow us on Facebook – we share a different TRNP horse just about every day https://www.facebook.com/ChasingHorsesWHA

You can also see some awesome videos of these horses on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChasingHorsesWildHorseAd-vj8hm

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