CALGARY – There is just a week left until Alberta’s wild horse capture comes to an end, but those opposed to the controversial practice aren’t ready to stop their protests just yet.
Shannon Mann is putting in an around-the-clock effort as she fights to end the capture.
She has been camping in the snow near one of the traps outside of Calgary for five days, in an effort to deter the man legally allowed to capture the feral horses.
“Being captured, which is probably terrifying for them, separated… and then a lot of them will end up in the slaughterhouse,” says Mann. “This year there has been so much public attention that maybe some of the horses will be rescued, but it’s not a sustainable practice because the rescues will fill up quickly.”
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Permits were distributed by the government to allow the capture of up to 200 feral horses near Sundre.
Permit-holders can to do as they please with the animals once caught, but many of the horses are sold for meat.
“They have a place out there somewhere. But so do the deer, and so do the elk, and so do the moose, and so do the fox and the marmots and the cougar and grizzly bears,” says Jason Bradley, a horse capture permit holder. “The grass, plants and other legumes… they all have a place too. When there’s an introduced species without a man-made solution and management of that, the horses will tend to over-graze in a certain area, causing all kinds of erosion.”
The legal capture is an effort to control the population by the province, although several ranchers say the horses have had a rough winter and the capture isn’t needed.
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