Background on Wild Horses

Wild horses are not always considered wild. They are technically speaking “feral horses”.  Even horses that are born “wild” are not considered to be wild by definition because they descend from domestic horses that were abandoned, escaped or turned free. Some of the “wild horses” are free-roaming horses owned by indigenous communities such as the situation of Penticton wild horse population (Radio West, 2015). On this website, the words both wild and feral are used to describe these horses. There are instances of people releasing their domestic horses into the wild which is illegal.

In Alberta, the last feral horse count program was in 2019 and the number of feral horses in Alberta was 1679 (Government of Alberta, 2020). In British Columbia, the population number is harder to locate as a province. This is due to a more local based management of the feral horse populations. Populations in Saskatchewan are also hard to pinpoint a number. Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia, has a population of about 500 wild horses (Shubenacadie Wildlife Park).