An advocacy group for Alberta’s wild horses, the Wild Horses of Alberta Society, has entered into a five-year agreement with the province to humanely manage the wild horse population near Sundre and in the Kananaskis area earlier this month.
This would allow the advocacy group to start two experimental contraception and adoption programs to help manage wild horses.
The agreement stems from the province maintaining that the horse population needs to be balanced with grassland health. This resulted in controversy last spring, where the province opened up a six-week capture season for up to 196 horses that could be kept for personal use or sent to slaughter.
The round up resulted in the capture of only 15 animals, but advocates maintain that with wild horses numbers in the foothills are down around 100 horses from the 980 count in 2013, a capture is unnecessary.
Horse-capture licences are distributed by Alberta Environmental and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD) for a cost of $200. AESRD and the RCMP screen licence-holders. The province will require the Wild Horses of Alberta Society to show results from both its programs over the five-year period.
A capture for this coming spring has not yet been ruled out.
