I would like to respond to the Aug. 16 letter “Horse contraception programs” in the Round Up written by Murray Bates. While it is encouraging that Mr. Bates is in favour of adoption of Alberta's wild horses, it is discouraging that he has written his “opinion” about the Zona Stat H Contraceptive as though it is fact.
I appreciate that before his retirement, he was a wildlife officer but that fact does not make him an expert on the Zona Stat H contraceptive vaccine. Contrary to his opinion, Zona Stat H has been used very successfully for decades by many organizations in the U.S., including the Science and Conservation Centre in Billings, Montana. Anyone wishing to read factual data on the vaccine, I would encourage to log in to www.sccpzp.org, click on the “News” tab located in the left hand column, and specifically read the article titled “Locally Produced Wildlife Contraceptive Vaccine Approved by EPA”.
Mr. Bates questions the accuracy and identifiability of the horses. The work and professionalism members of the Wild Horses of Alberta Society have put into creating and maintaining a database used to keep track of these horses is beyond what many people could imagine. Each horse has a photographic and descriptive. The database also tracks the movements and changes within the herds. Although the horses may not be easily identifiable to Mr. Bates, to our incredibly dedicated volunteers, each horse is extremely unique. Each mare and her foaling history is known. There is nothing amateur about how WHOAS is conducting this trial, and to suggest otherwise is only admitting an ignorance of the process.
Mr. Bates suggests that the program is inhumane, which I can't even respond to as I can't begin to understand the rationale behind it. He suggests that the social dynamics of the herds would be upset by the vaccination program. Again — hard to understand the rationale behind that statement. The mares will still ovulate, the stallion will still breed. The lead mare will remain the lead mare, the stallion will remain the guardian of his harem. Contraception allows the structure of the herd to remain intact as all family members remain with herd. The aftermath of a cull, (Bates' management of choice) is that the dynamics of an affected herd are destroyed. Period.
It's unfortunate but there are old boys still with Fish and Wildlife who seem to feel that no one could possibly have the knowledge or ability to manage wildlife better than they can, which seems to be through the use of archaic, outdated methods that will result in the eventual extinction of the wild horses on the Eastern Slopes. Mr. Bates takes pride in being an advisor on the evaluation and roundup that resulted in the complete removal of the horses from the Suffield Base, and so it is not all that surprising that he would appear to be advocating for the same results here.
I would like to close with a quote by Dr. Andrew Rowan, chief science officer and chief international officer for the HSUS, president and CEO, Humane Society International:
“Wildlife fertility management is an issue of growing importance as human activities encroach further and further into wild spaces and social attitudes to animals across the globe press for more consideration for individual animals.
“Killing and culling to solve human-wildlife conflict is becoming less acceptable and fertility control offers the hope of a new framework for human interaction with wildlife.”
Gillian Charrois
Bergen area
