Clare Tannas got a tough lesson in how treasured wild horses are when he suggested that continual grazing by wild horses west of Sundre, Alta., posed a threat to prime grazing grasses and the animals should be removed and perhaps replaced with bison.
“Feral horses are escaped domestic animals that are not native to the foothills range and should be treated as an invasive species,” wrote the range inventory specialist in an article published in the Mountain View Gazette last month.
If the 300 horses are allowed to grow unchecked, they could irrevocably damage the local ecology by overgrazing key rough fescue grasses, he suggests.
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The reaction was quick and even nasty.
His conclusions were based on prejudice, assumptions and pseudo-science, said University of Lethbridge wild horse researcher Claudia Notzke.
“There are many and ill-informed ideas and attitudes currently prevailing around this province about our wild horses, not to mention blatant anti-wildlife propaganda from so-called eco-ag experts and concerned industry groups, which is clearly a product of bias and/or ignorance of the facts,” said Wild Horses of Alberta Society president Bob Henderson.
Tannas, a horse owner, understands the emotional connection.
He said he was trying to spark discussion about wild horses, because there is growing support for legislated protection. That has led to larger herds and starving horses, he said.
“Long before you have horses starving, there is extreme damage done to the rangeland,” he said.
“We may have already lost (rough fescue) in certain places where they have grazed continually. In fact, it may take years and years for it to come back.”
The damage can affect the whole ecology, having an impact on songbirds and even the soil.
Henderson is not convinced by Tannas’s science. Only a few hundred horses roam the area, while thousands of cattle feed there during summer months.
“Again it was blaming the horses for what’s wrong, when it’s the horses (that) are a benefit to the range.”
For years, poachers have preyed on the horses. Since 2002, about 30 have been found dead, 20 in 2007 alone. The provincial government considers the horses feral, the descendants of mining and logging workhorses turned loose in the 1920s.
Each year, permits are issued to round up some of the horses. Some are used for resale as pack animals or rodeo stock. Others end up at meat packing plants.
Henderson said the society submitted a 10-page draft plan for the horses to the government in 2005, but it went nowhere.
“We’re working on a new proposal based on some better idea for managing the numbers if they have to be managed,” he said, adding that the society could help find homes on ranches for captured horses.
Notzke wants the province to recognize the horses as wildlife and change the management approach. It’s time for systematic, independent and peer-reviewed research on wild horses, she says.
“The only scientific study that has been done on Alberta’s wild horses goes back to the 1970s. At that time, no damage or competition (with elk for food) was documented.”
