FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – After being introduced and passed in the 2025 North Dakota Legislature, the Feather Alert will launch on August 1.
The Feather Alert is an emergency system that will send out urgent messages to the public to help locate indigenous adults who have either been abducted or believed to be at imminent risk of serious bodily injury or death.
“Even as of right now, there are currently 18 indigenous people that are missing on the attorney general website,” said Vicki Alberts, Public Relations Specialist/Law Clerk, Spirit Lake Nation. “On a national level, indigenous people go missing at a rate that’s 10 times higher than any other racial background in the country, and whether that is including all those that have been reported or non-reported.
For a Feather Alert to be issued, certain criteria need to be met, one of which is that the missing or abducted person is believed to be in grave danger of serious bodily harm or death.’
“I think it will not only activate law enforcement personnel, but activate the community and public in general,” Alberts said. “Be on alert and aware that there is somebody who’s missing and could be in the Bismarck area, in the Fargo area, it doesn’t just stop here on the reservation.”
The Feather Alert system was first introduced and passed in the 2025 North Dakota Legislative Session as part of House Bill 1535.
“It’s really been a long time coming, and I thank our state legislatures for seeing the need for it,” Alberts said.
According to the CDC, Native American and Alaska Native rates of murder, rape, and violent crime are all higher than the national averages.
