In an effort to keep wild horses out of slaughterhouses, a Cochrane-area rescue facility is looking to expand.
Dr. Sandie Hucal, who runs Free Spirit Sanctuary, is on the hunt for a parcel of land in the western foothills to be transformed into a wild horse sanctuary and an advocacy centre.
Hucal said she’s urgently looking for about 80 acres between Black Diamond and Sundre. Ideally, the land would be remote, with trees and grasslands and a source of water.
The expansion would include a management plan for the horses and the land.
“We’re looking to be good stewards of the land,” said Hucal. “We don’t want to put more horses on the land then it can handle.”
She added she’s aiming for a minimum of four acres for each horse.
The wild horses will be purchased from a capture permit holder. While the captured young stock is often sold to be trained, Hucal said the mature horses tend to be overlooked by buyers. She said the sanctuary is focusing rescue efforts on pregnant mares.
“I feel pregnant mares should have been excluded from the capture — but they weren’t,” she said. “But by focusing on these mares, we can rescue two lives instead of one.”
The management of the horses would include fertility control, routine veterinary and hoof care, and supplemental feeding.
“We will try to keep human interaction with the horses to a minimum,” she remarked.
“We want the horses to remain as wild as possible.”
Hucal’s agreement with the permit holder is based on her finding land for the horses. She said she hopes to secure land as soon as possible. The capture season is well under way and will wrap up by March.
The Alberta government made the decision to allow the capture of about 200 feral horses that live in the foothills. Permits were issued after an aerial survey of indicated a rise in the animal’s population.
Free Spirit Sanctuary, a non-profit organization, has been giving horses, donkeys and mules a forever home since 2007, rescuing them from abuse, neglect and slaughter.
