The Olds-based Wild Horses of Alberta Society (WHOAS) has entered into an agreement with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) regarding free-roaming horses west of Sundre. The five-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) is now in effect and will run through November 2019. "The agreement allows WHOAS to undertake two experimental programs to help control feral horse populations," ESRD spokesperson Duncan MacDonnell told the Gazette.
The Olds-based Wild Horses of Alberta Society (WHOAS) has entered into an agreement with Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (ESRD) regarding free-roaming horses west of Sundre.
The five-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) is now in effect and will run through November 2019.
"The agreement allows WHOAS to undertake two experimental programs to help control feral horse populations," ESRD spokesperson Duncan MacDonnell told the Gazette. "A mare contraception program that will vaccinate a limited number of mares to prevent pregnancies for up to three years, and an adoption program to take in gentle horses and to adopt out any young foals that have been captured, abandoned or injured.
"From our perspective the purpose of the agreement is to determine if these options are successful in helping population management and to what degree."
Both programs will be undertaken on portions of the Sundre equine management zone, which runs along the Eastern Slopes west of Sundre. It is one of six such zones in the province.
The memorandum of understanding specifies that WHOAS must be able to document the results of both projects, he said, noting that the projects are being funded entirely by WHOAS with no money coming from ESRD.
WHOAS says alternatives to horse capture programs need to be developed to control the population of free-roaming horses in the six management zones.
WHOAS says the horses are wild; ESRD says they are feral.
Society president Bob Henderson posted the following comment on the group's website: "This is a momentous occasion for the wild horses, WHOAS, and the ESRD. (The new MOU) allows WHOAS to work in collaboration with the ESRD to humanely manage wild horse populations."
WHOAS is one of the 14 members of a provincial stakeholder group formed by the province to examine the management of the free-roaming horse populations in the province.
"For them to be part of this (the two new projects) is great," said MacDonnell.
The province's free-roaming horse capture program is not related to the new agreement. The department has not yet decided whether a capture season will take place in 2015, he said.
"At this point we haven't determined if or what we are going to do in terms of capture over those other five zones. There would be no capture in this Sundre equine zone (in 2015)," he said.
