Protecting Wild Horses in Alberta (& Canada)

Wild Hearts – A mini-documentary about the wild horses of Alberta.

CANADA’S WILD HORSES

Canada’s Last Wild Horses – A video presentation by biologist Wayne McCrory

Canada’s Last Wild Horses – A Powerpoint presentation by Wayne McCrory (2025)

Wild horses have been a part of the Canadian west for hundreds of years. There are currently wild horses living in the Chilcotin region of British Columbia and parts of Saskatchewan, including a population of protected wild horses in the Bronson Forest. A small population also exists in the Yukon Territory.

There are also approximately 1700 wild horses in Alberta spread out over thousands of square kilometres of terrain in the Rocky mountain foothills. In the 1990s, a population of approximately 1200 wild horses also lived on Canadian Forces Base Suffield near Medicine Hat. Unfortunately, despite a concerted effort by Zoocheck, Animal Alliance of Canada, Albertan’s for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Grasslands Naturalists, the Department of National Defense (DND) removed the horses. Despite promises to the contrary, most of the horses were sent to slaughter. A population of several hundred wild horses also exists on Sable Island, a small sand island approximately 112 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. The Sable Island horses are the most famous of Canada’s wild horses and have been on the island for hundreds of years.

ALBERTA’S WILD HORSES

Despite the fact that Alberta’s wild horse numbers are very low and spread out over an enormous range of largely fragmented and disturbed habitat, private interests and the Alberta government have long claimed that the horses are causing irreparable damage to natural ecosystems. No compelling scientific evidence has ever been produced to substantiate their damage claims. In fact, horses should be characterized as native wildlife and protected. Not only did horses emerge in North America and co-evolve with the habitats they currently exist in, they can serve a range of beneficial ecological functions. Additionally, modern horses are genetically equivalent to the horses that existed in Alberta just a few thousand years ago, a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. When determining whether a species is native or not, typically several criteria are used. When these are applied to Alberta’s wild horses, there is no question that they should be considered wild and a part of Canada’s natural wildlife heritage.

REPORTS ABOUT CANADA’S WILD HORSES

• CANADA’S LAST WILD HORSES, A Slide Show by Wayne McCrory (2025)
• Science Review of 2023 Alberta Feral Horse Management Framework (2024)
• Preliminary Technical Review of Management of Free-Roaming (“Feral”) Horses in Alberta’s Six Foothills Equine Zones (2015)
• Report on Wild Horses and Ecosystem in Rocky Mountain Foothills East of Banff National Park and West of Sundre, Alberta, Canada (Red Deer River, James River & vicinity) (2015)

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TAKE ACTION Please help Zoocheck’s wild horse campaign by contacting Alberta’s Premier Danielle Smith and the Alberta Minister of Environment and Protected Areas and ask them to stop any future round ups of Alberta’s wild horses.

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INTERESTING PUBLICATIONS

• Evolution of Wild Horses and Cattle and the Effect On Range Damage (September 2017)
• Indian Horses Before Columbus (February 2016)
• A wild idea? Should horses be returned to their historic rangelands? (July 16, 2015)
• A Geographic Assessment of the Global Scope for Rewilding with Wild-Living Horses (Equus ferus) (2015)
• Hooves In History: How the Horse Changed the West (December 2013)
• New evidence rewrites time for American horse extinction (December 16, 2009)
• The Surprising History of America’s Wild Horses (July 24, 2008)