What the provincial government is calling an approach to allow feral horses to thrive, wild horse advocates are calling a "blood thirst."
A recent Facebook post by Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Lowen announced that the government was looking at reducing wild horse populations that exceeded thresholds by using contraception or removing them.
Hundreds of people were quick to admonish the minister for threatening Alberta's wild horse population. More than 600 comments on his post included messages like "Keep your hands off our wild horses" and "Sterilization and culling wild horses is beyond wrong" and "What a ridiculous and uneducated decision."
Darrell Glover, founder and president of Help Alberta Wildies Society (HAWS), said wild horse populations have been either static or declining, so there is absolutely no reason to cull them or sterilize mares with drugs that will prevent foals for years.
"It's a blood thirst," Glover said.
"It's just another sneaky way for them to start, once again, on their plans of equine genocide."
Glover said sterilization is totally reckless and irresponsible. Mares barely get to keep a foal for more than a couple of weeks, and usually don't survive to the next spring due to predation from bears, wolves and cougars or injuries.
HAWS monitors 21 km of the Williams Creek Valley in the Sundre area with 80 trail cameras to keep track of bands of horses on a daily basis.
"It proves that only about eight per cent of the foals born actually make it to become a yearling. We've seen a lot of them taken down even at two years old."
He said through the years the government has been determined to get rid of wild horse saying they had no natural predators, suffered from equine infectious anemia, the population was skyrocketing, and they damaged the landscape and ecosystem. None of that is true, and now the government has set ridiculously low population thresholds.
According to the government's aerial count in January 2023 for the Clearwater Equine Management Zone, there were 156 horses in 550,000 acres. Government wants to cap the number of horses at 99, which would leave only one horse per 5,555 acres, he added.
Glover said it all comes down to "who gets the grass" and the government favours free range space for cattle.
"It's not science based, it's political. It's the cattle lobby that's pushing them from behind."
He said horses could face sterilization or removal in January or February, and urged the public to contact Lowen and Premier Danielle Smith to protest the plan.
HAWS is also working with Zoocheck, a Canadian-based international wildlife protection charity, which has studied Alberta's Feral Horse Management Framework and argues the plan is not supported by scientific evidence.
Alexandru Cioban, spokesperson for the Minister of Forestry and Parks, said government is committed to protecting native wildlife, native vegetation, and managing feral horses – ensuring they can thrive within their ecosystems. As part of this commitment, responsible population management is essential.
"To be clear, there is no cull of Alberta feral horses planned, and minimum counts conducted across the years have shown horse populations more than doubled in the last decade – from just barely over 700 in 2015, to nearly 1,500 today," said Cioban, in a statement.
He said options like adoption and contraception in areas like the Elbow and Clearwater equine zones, where horse populations have exceeded the management thresholds set in the framework, is an approach that reflects the guidelines from the Feral Horse Advisory Committee, which includes input and support from advocacy groups, grazing organizations, wildlife groups, and academics.
