Wild Horse Management in Alberta
Alberta's wild horses have lived on the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains for generations. They move through the foothills in family bands, navigate brutal winters, and leave a mark on the landscape — and on the people who encounter them — that is genuinely difficult to forget.
They also share that landscape with ranchers, forestry operations, Indigenous communities, wildlife, and a provincial regulatory system that is still working out how best to honour their presence. WHOAS works at that intersection every single day. This page explains what that looks like — and why it matters.
How are Alberta's wild horses managed?
Alberta's wild horses fall under provincial jurisdiction, governed by the Stray Animals Act and the Horse Capture Regulation.
A formal advisory process, the Feral Horse Advisory Committee, brings together government, landowners, Indigenous communities, researchers, and organizations like WHOAS to provide ongoing input into management decisions. WHOAS has held a seat at that table since the beginning. We believe that being present in that process — bringing welfare expertise, practical field experience, and a genuine commitment to these animals — is one of the most important contributions we make.
Contraception has been explored as a management tool in Alberta. Based on our experience, the practical and logistical challenges in this landscape are significant, and it is not currently part of our active work.
What role does WHOAS play?
WHOAS holds a government-issued capture licence under the Horse Capture Regulation. When wild horses are in distress, have strayed onto private land, or face situations where their welfare is at risk and no regulated path home exists — we step in.
What happens next is the work we are most proud of. Every horse that comes to WHOAS receives a full veterinary assessment, proper medical care, and patient, skilled handling that may be the first genuinely safe human contact that animal has ever known. Through that process — measured in weeks and sometimes months, never rushed — wild horses become horses that can have a future.
Every one of those futures represents an animal that, without WHOAS, would likely have faced the livestock market, an unregulated outcome, or a slaughter. We do not take that responsibility lightly. We never have.
What does humane management look like in practice?
It starts before a horse arrives. Every action WHOAS takes is conducted under proper provincial authority, with mandatory welfare reporting within 48 hours — including photographs and identifying details of each animal. We do not operate in the shadows and we do not cut corners.
At our facility, every horse receives a full veterinary assessment, deworming, vaccinations, and any treatment required. Male horses are gelded prior to adoption — a provincial requirement and a genuine welfare consideration. A gelded horse is safer to handle, safer for adopters, and significantly more likely to find and keep a good home. It is performed by a licensed veterinarian, with full care, as part of our commitment to the long-term wellbeing of each animal.
The gentling process that follows is built entirely on the horse's terms. There is no timeline that matters more than the animal in front of us. We have learned, over years of this work, that patience is not a virtue in this context — it is the method.
Every horse adopted through WHOAS carries a unique freeze brand — permanent identification agreed upon with the Government of Alberta, ensuring full traceability for life.
Humane management also means being honest about hard moments. When intervention is necessary — when a horse is on private land, at risk, with no path back — the decision to act is not one we make lightly. We feel the weight of it. We believe that feeling that weight is part of doing this work with integrity.
What was the Bison Lake relocation and why does it matter?
In early 2025, WHOAS worked with the Government of Alberta and an Indigenous community partner to relocate a band of wild horses.
The horses were moved humanely, together, as the family unit they were. They went to freedom — on treaty lands, welcomed by a community that understands and honours the relationship between Indigenous peoples and wild horses on this landscape.
This was the first time the Government of Alberta permitted the relocation of wild horses. That did not happen by accident. It happened because of years of relationship-building, trust earned across sectors, and a shared commitment to finding better options for horses whose only previous alternative was removal.
We hope it is the first of many. We are working to make sure it is.
Where does WHOAS stand on the future of wild horses in Alberta?
We believe wild horses belong on the Alberta landscape. Not as a problem to be reduced. Not as an unmanaged population that eventually threatens its own future. But as a sustainable, valued, protected presence — recognized for their ecological role, their deep cultural significance to Indigenous peoples, and the simple truth that they are extraordinary animals who have earned their place here.
That future requires honest science, genuine collaboration across sectors, and organizations willing to do the hard and unglamorous work that wild horses actually need — not just the visible work that generates attention.
Every spring, young stallions get pushed out.
It's the way of things — the dominant stallion moves them on, and they go looking for their place in the world. Sometimes that search leads them somewhere complicated.
We got a call about three of them. They'd found their way onto a ranch and decided the domestic mares in the pasture were exactly what they'd been looking for. The landowner was patient — he'd tried moving them on himself, more than once. But three determined young stallions with something to prove are not easily discouraged, and eventually he was out of options.
We understood his position completely. And we understood theirs.
These were not problem horses. They were young, healthy, and doing precisely what their instincts told them to do. They just happened to be doing it in the wrong pasture.
We brought them in. They were bold and full of themselves in the way that only young stallions can be — not dangerous, just convinced of their own importance.
All three found homes. One of them — the pushiest of the three — went to a family who said they'd never met a horse so determined to be noticed. They named him something fitting. He's doing well.
We think about those three often. They remind us that the horses we're called about are rarely the problem. They're usually just horses being horses — in a world that doesn't always have room for that.