We have a Vision
of a Wilder Future
Restoring our Planet to
Save Humanity
We believe rewilding is the solution to a global loss of biodiversity, and to declining mental health, particularly in developed nations. Our mission is to support rewilding initiatives in conservation biology with particular emphasis on measures that re-establish trophic cascades and promote no-take areas; as well as in human wellness, particularly the therapeutic value of human rewilding in underserved populations. Ultimately, we exist to empower underserved populations to become champions of our planet's conversation challenges.
Rewilding
the Planet
Restoring
the Human Spirit
Founder's Profile
Natalie Rohlfs, founder, and President, of Jackalope Acres was raised by a village that included free spirited back-to-the-land farmer and artist parents, an adopted homesteader grandfather, and a Thai immigrant godmother. Her unique upbringing influenced by such a robust tribe at home gave Natalie a keen sense of her place within the natural world, a deep affinity for all living creatures, a compulsion to inspire hope, and an unwavering determination to extinguish injustice. Natalie's ethos is that our responsibility to our earth is akin to any spiritual virtue and that the wildernesses is as grand a place to worship as any church.
A Brief History
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
After several years of planning and implementation Jackalope Acres receives it's 501c(3) determination and begins operations. The original scope of the organization was to create resolutions to the wild horse and burro dilemma plaguing the overburdened ecosystems of the Western United States in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management.
Jackalope Acres begins it's Train and Adopt program serving the Western seaboard. The Mustangs to Alaska project, an extension of the Train and Adopt program, is proposed to the Bureau of Land Management and administrative work begins on the project. Jackalope Acres begins accepting teen and veteran interns and offering clinics where veterans are given the opportunity to build trust with program mustangs.
Memorandum of Understanding talks proceed with the Bureau of Land Management in support of the Mustangs to Alaska project. Teen and veteran internships continue. The Train and Adopt program continues to see success and administrative work towards the Veterans Program (a sub project of the Rewilding: The Human Spirit Program as of 2022) begins. Jackalope Acres scales operations and adjusts to the early stages of the pandemic.
The Train and Adopt program is discontinued so that organization trainers can be dedicated to the implementation of the Mustangs to Alaska project. Although an MOU was not reached with the Bureau of Land Management the team worked tirelessly to implement the project on schedule and was proud to invite trained mustangs to Alaska in 2021. Teen and veteran internships were suspended after the Mustang to Alaska project horses were dispatched in response to ongoing lockdowns.
During the pandemic, the organizations leadership reevaluates the scope and impact of the original mission statement. The organization ushers in a new chapter as the mission is broadened to address the larger environmental and societal issues underlying the early mission, to address ecosystem destruction from wild horse and burro overpopulation. The organization emerges from the pandemic ready to tackle global rewilding.
As the pandemic starts to wind down the official end of the Train and Adopt program is announced. Several program mustangs enter training for their new role: ambassadors to rewilding the human spirit. Jackalope Acres begins the tedious administrative work of growing to meet the next chapter and celebrates the launch of the reimagined Veterans project, now a subproject of the Rewilding: The Human Spirit Program. The project implements a pilot horse packing program into the Alaskan backcountry with 6 veterans in August of 2022 and is deeply successful. The Rewilding: The Human Spirit Program is on track for expansion in 2023 to include additional expedition style programming serving veterans. Jackalope Acres is currently working administratively on the Rewilding: The Whistle Blowers Program and hopes to launch it's pilot in 2023 with the Rewilding: The Planet Program to follow in 2024-2025.
Our Donors Make All This Possible
Many thanks to
Petco Health and Wellness
for donating to our
Veteran's Program
Many thanks to
GCI
for donating to our
Veteran's Program
