I found the comments in the July 16 edition of the Round Up, as well as the story in the Aug. 2 edition of the Mountain View Gazette regarding a pilot contraceptive program for free-roaming horses informative but needing some clarification.
One thing I must compliment your publication and other print and electronic media members in the province on, of late, is your use of the term free-roaming horse (FRH) as opposed to ‘wildie' or ‘feral' when describing the semi-wild horse herds frequenting Alberta's Eastern Slopes. I initially proposed this designation to the local media in Sundre, and government, as early as 2010, as a means of neutralizing and de-polarizing management negotiations. Government, however, still prefers the term feral.
I wish to make a few comments about the contraception process that I'm not totally sure the public at large is aware of. I was a Fish and Wildlife officer and wild animal health technologist in various locations in Alberta for more than 40 years. These professions afforded me a great deal of hands-on field experience with both wild and various domestic animals, such as the feral horses at CFB Suffield, in the 1980s and 1990s. In the Suffield instance I was an advisor on the evaluation, humane roundup and adoption of 1,248 feral horses. I might add that only one horse (.08 per cent) was severely injured enough to be slaughtered, in this the largest humane horse cull of its kind in Canada.
Contrary to what many inexperienced, weekend wranglers might be professing, horses that are captured in a humane manner do not have to be slaughtered. The term slaughter does not need to apply to horses when there are people potentially willing to adopt and care for an animal, even with non-life-threatening infirmities. This case was exemplified last winter when I strongly recommended that the injured FRH, ‘Caleb,' not be put down. Slaughter is fast becoming ‘old school' when applied to modern and ethical free-roaming horse management.
My concern with the experimental vaccination of free-roaming mares, in scattered bands and believed to not be in foal, is as follows: the vaccine is expensive and has to be repeated every two to three years, and possibly with a booster in between. This process is very labour intensive, disruptive and costly. It might even approach slaughter as being inhumane, with repeated attempts to deliver and recover the darts. If one has the privilege of adopting a FRH that is legally and ethically captured, it's a much cheaper process and should be accompanied by a donation to a charitable organization.
Once sexually mature mares that have been treated during the trial period randomly disperse over large areas and are not easily identifiable or locatable to have subsequent vaccinations, it might be very difficult to re-implement scientific methods that have proven their effectiveness on large groups of wild or free-roaming ungulates. The horse's reproductive and social dynamics could very likely be disrupted due to the many unknowns and management shortfalls of a temporary large animal sterilization project. Sterilization of truly wild populations on large tracts of land, such as Alberta's Eastern Slopes, is not normally successful, unlike in the confines of a zoo or park.
I don't envy wildlife managers, who in four years' time attempt to resume the proven techniques of census, recruitment and sustainable harvest (humane cull) of Alberta's free-roaming horses that have had micro-reproductive experimentation attempted. Was this done strictly to save a cash-strapped government money at the expense of sound free-roaming equine management; or possibly to have doctoral thesis experience financed through otherwise well-meaning public donation? I am, therefore, recommending that a close second look be applied to the process before it is expanded or repeated.
Murray Bates
AB Fish and Wildlife officer (Ret.)
Bearberry
