Page 62 - DreamScapes Magazine | Spring/Summer 2023

PRESERVATION FEATURE
Wild Horses
NEAR THE ALBERTA ROCKY’S EASTERN SLOPES
Searching for Life
A POLARIZING TOPIC
Few people are neutral on the topic of wild horses. Some love them, feeling their wildness deserves respect. Others think wild horses have no place in a wilderness environment, claiming they eat vegetation that should go to cattle or other ungulates. In past years, the Alberta government has sanc- tioned horse culls. To improve feral horse management, the Government of Alberta struck a Feral Horse Advisory Com- mittee in 2021. At the time of writing, no recommendations had been made. Two non-profit organizations, the Wild Horses of Alberta Society and the Help Alberta Wildies Society, advo- cate for wild horse protection and humane treatment.
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY CAROL PATTERSON
Dark brown eyes watched us. Deep in the forested wilder- ness of the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, a tiny horse peered around its mother, the foal’s gaze relaxed, oblivious to her mama’s protruding hip and rib bones.
“She’s alive,” exclaimed my guide, Debra Garside, an expert in wild horses and a renowned photographer who leads photography workshops, many for people choosing the upscale comfort at one of Alberta’s finest wilderness offerings known as The Lodge at Pan- ther River. Weeks earlier she’d seen a dark brown mare called Tia give birth, her condition so malnourished, birth was slow and the foal struggled to stand.
Garside tracked her for a time but didn’t expect this wild foal to survive. Her mother was skinny and had a low status among the mares. She needed to stay with the herd for protection from preda- tors but their pace was draining her reserves and her foal was getting weaker. Hence, the reason she was named Joplin, after the doomed singer (names are assigned through a volunteer coordinator). Now the cinnamon-coloured youngster began to nurse greedily.
INSIDE TRACK
You don’t need an expert to find wild horses in western Alberta, but it helps. A 2022 survey of Alberta’s wild horses revealed 1,178 ani- mals, most of them found in the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains west of Sundre.
62 DREAMSCAPES SPRING/SUMMER 2023