Free-roaming horses have existed in Alberta for hundreds of years. Some say they’re a nuisance, while others believe they have their own place in the landscape. In the end, who gets to decide the horses’ fate?
Author: Monica Kidd | Date: October 4, 2024 | Website: https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/the-politics-of-wild-where-do-albertas-wild-horses-belong/
Monica Kidd's October 2024 Canadian Geographic feature asks who should decide the fate of the roughly 1,400 free-roaming horses in Alberta. She tours Crown land southwest of Sundre on the Eastern Slopes, home to Alberta's largest free-roaming herd, with Darrell Glover, president of the Help Alberta Wildies Society. Since 1993 the province has treated the horses as feral strays under the Stray Animals Act, with grazing competition against cattle as its main concern.
The province's 2023 management framework sets population thresholds for its Equine Management Zones, allowing euthanasia as a last resort in the red category. The Sundre zone, at 969 horses, was 31 short of that line. Glover founded HAWS in 2014 after protesting a capture operation, and now runs about 75 trail cameras. He disputes the province's aerial survey methods, which the province defends.
Îyârhe Nakoda knowledge keeper Corleigh Powderface shares a teaching linking people and horses since creation. Rancher Graham Overguard blames the horses for overgrazing and would support a humane, science-based cull. Ethicist Jennifer Welchman notes that the rhetoric used about the horses echoes anti-immigrant language. Kidd concludes that the horses resist any tidy line between wild and not wild.