Advocacy group fights to save Alberta's wild horses from population control plan 10 years after cull

On a quiet and serene ranch about an hour north of Calgary, several horses eagerly eat out of the palm of Darrell Glover's hand. Four of them are wild horses and were rescued by Glover, a retired rancher.

The president of Help Alberta Wildies Society says he's dedicated the last 10 years to preserving the population of the species after the government of Alberta ordered a cull in 2014 saying they were widely destroying the range land. After a long reprieve, Glover finds himself in the same fight again after the province put forth a plan to manage the animal's population.

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"We don't want to see them gone," Glover said.

"We spend a lot of time out in the bush looking for these horses and they're basically getting harder to find at certain times of the year."

The province's website records 1,478 wild horses on Alberta land in 2024, but Glover believes the number is much lower.

He says the animals have been living in the wild for the past 400 years and are important to the ecosystem but are being wrongfully blamed for damaging the land.

"When we started, they said wild horses had no natural predators. That was a reason to cull. We proved that wrong. Then they said that they were all full of EIA, equine infectious anemia. We proved that wrong. Then they said the numbers were skyrocketing. We proved that wrong. Then they went (and) said the horses are damaging the landscape. We've proved that wrong," Glover said.

Retired rancher Darrell Glover. (CTV News)

A 2015 range health report found wild horses actually caused little damage to the land. Most of it was caused by clearcut logging, off-road vehicles and cattle.

Wayne McCrory, a wildlife biologist from British Columbia, says he came to Alberta in 2015 to do a review on range overgrazing caused by wild horses, but couldn't find any localized damage.

"The ministry at the time in 2015 finally admitted that they couldn't point me to any areas with significant range damage that I could go and look and document," McCrory said.

"They should be focusing on restoring the health from the cumulative effects and not just scapegoating the wild horses."

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Alberta Forestry and Parks Minister Todd Loewen maintains they aren't scapegoating the unique-to-Alberta species and are considering all factors that impact the rangeland.

He emphasizes that they are not culling the animals and have developed a science-based management framework, identified by the Feral Horse Advisory Committee, to control the population through horse adoption and birth control, once threshold is met.

"There haven't been any actions yet because the numbers have just met those thresholds," Loewen said.

Glover is part of the Feral Horse Advisory Committee and says he agreed to a certain population cap but didn't agree to the low threshold limits for each equine zone.

"We're concerned that the numbers are getting down to a point that are going to become unsustainable. And once they're gone, you can't replace this unique species," Glover said.

He says he's also against adoption and contraceptives as a form of population control and will vigorously oppose them.

"By using a contraception and preventing birth, as far as we're concerned, that's going to lead to equine genocide."