CALGARY – After protests against a provincially-sanctioned capture of 200 horses last year, the Alberta government has approved the roundup of up to 60 wild horses northwest of Calgary this month. And this time, the horses will first be offered up for adoption.
“We’re going to be offering them to the Wild Horses of Alberta Society,” said Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resources and Development public affairs officer Duncan MacDonnell. “And the roundups are going to be administered, managed by the RCMP under the Stray Animals Act.”
WHOAS has the capacity to take between six and 20 horses to be gentled and adopted out.
MacDonnell said this year the capture is in a completely different area: the Ghost Equine zone south of Red Deer River instead of the Sundre equine zone like last year. The Sundre herd is now protected through a pilot project involving contraceptive darting and rescues.
“We’re trying to bring down the numbers of animals—of wild horses—on this particular part of the province,” said MacDonnell. “It’s by no means an attempt to remove feral horses from the landscape altogether…just bring them down to a more manageable number in that particular zone.”
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Horses that aren’t adopted will be up for sale at public auction; this could mean for purchase by a horse lover, or potentially for slaughter. The province estimates there are about 880 feral horses in the foothills area.
Help Alberta Wildies is a group hoping to save the horses that protested near the capture zone last year, and it says the new system is a signal of success.
“That’s an accomplishment over last year, we didn’t have that last year,” said member Darrell Glover. “With ownership going to the RCMP, that takes the conflict of interest out of the capture.”
But Glover said the group is still considering whether it will protest the new capture, which ends Feb. 28.
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