Alison, Robert M.

8 Mile Point, Orillia, Ontario L3V 6H1 ,Canada Phone (705) 326-7908 Fax (705) 326-5143
 

Canada's Last Wild Horses

by R.M.Alison

Horses originally evolved in North America, and proto-horses were present in Canada in Pleistocene times. About 8000 years ago, horses inexplicably vanished from the Americas, but not before some had wandered to Asia via the Bering Land Bridge. Horse evolution continued in Eurasia, and in the 1500's, Spaniards reintroduced Iberian barb descendents to Mexico.

Escapees formed herds of wild horses which, within 150 years, numbered in the millions, mostly Andaluz Spanish Mustangs. By 1800, millions of these horses occurred in western Canada. Numbers have declined acutely in the past decade.

Only about 200 remain in the wild at present, down from 2000 two decades ago. Genetic testing shows direct Spanish mustang ancestry.

Wild horses are unprotected by Canadian provincial or federal law, and killing them is not illegal. Without protection, survival seems doubtful. The gene pool is already at a critical low. The few horses that remain are a vital genetic reservoir of a stock so important in the legacy of the Canadian West.

Key words: wild horses, Spanish mustangs, declined acutely, genetic testing,

protection

Introduction:

Horses originally evolved in North America. Eocene eohippus forms occurred some 50 million years ago, a fundamental 4-toed mammal from which all subsequent horses derived. Equus caballus, the modern horse, evolved through orohippus, merychippus, hipparian and other stages, and representation of some of these early stages are known to have occurred in Canada as far north as the Yukon Territory dating to Pleistocene times about 1.2 million years ago (Jopling et.al.1981), with continuous occupation until at least 40,000 years ago (Harington 1977). Palaentologists confirm the presence of Equuus species in Canada through the Illinoin Glacial Stage (about 150,000 years ago), the Sangamon Interglacial (up to 60,000 years ago) and throughout the Wisconsin Glacial Stage, which ended about 10,000 years ago.

Preliminary evidence indicates ancestral horses inexplicably went extinct in North America about 8,000 years ago (Naylor,pers.comm.), and the most recent fossil Equus from Canada dates to about 12,000 years ago (Harrington, pers. comm.). However, the compete extirpation of ancestral horse stock in Canada has yet to be completely confirmed and a bone found near Sutherland, Saskatchewan, at the Riddell archaeological site suggests some horses might have survived much later. The bone (Canadian Museum of Nature I-8581), has been tentatively dated at about 2900 years ago. Another Equus sp. Bone, found at Hemlock Park Farm, Frontenac County, Ontario, dates to about 900 years ago. Exhaustive confirmation of both bones has yet to be completed, but if they prove to be authentic, they comprise evidence that horses survived in Canada into comparatively modern times.

Horse extinction in the Americas was post-glacial and the main factor was horse overkill by early humans (Martin, undated).

Pleistocene migration of ancestral Equus stock from North America to Asia took place via the Bering Land Bridge (op. cit.), and horse evolution ensued in Eurasia. Many domestic breeds eventually took shape, one of which was the Spanish Andaluz mustang, derived from Arabian-barb stock. In 1519, Spanish Conquistadors reintroduced horses to the New World (Diaz, 1517-21). In addition the 15 mustangs brought by the Cortez Expedition, others were imported from Spain by later Spanish homesteaders into Mexico and New Mexico.

Navajo raiders took mustangs from Spanish colonists as early as 1606, and subsequent raiding and trading among Natives resulted in widespread distribution. Horse culture pushed onto the Great Plains via Commanche, Pawnee and Dakota herds. A Rocky Mountain presence carried from Paiutes, Shoshonis and Crows to Blood and Blackfeet. In addition, escapee mustangs thrived, and large free-ranging herds developed. By 1800, there were several million wild mustangs in North America, about two million of which occurred in Canada (Howlett, pers.comm.)

Anecdotal accounts confirm a chronology for the penetration and establishment of resident herds of wild horses in Canada. According to Alexander Henry (1809), by 1776 Assiniboines occupying southern Manitoba and Saskatchewan had amassed large herds of mustangs which were pastured untethered and unconfined on the prairie.

About 1790, Blackfeet, Bloods and Piegans occupying southern Alberta are thought to have acquired mustangs from the Shoshoni of the Colunbia River basin (Thompson 1850) through raiding. By 1809, extensive herds of wild horses occurred in the Kootenays, and local natives regularly captured and domesticated some of them (op.cit.)

Thereafter, wild horses played a dominant role in the evolution of Plains Indian cultures. Wild free-ranging herds persisted, augmented by escapees from Native herds. Contemporary reports suggest that wild horses were more plentiful than bison in Canada in much of the 19th Century.

Spanish Andaluz Mustangs:

Colonial Spanish Andaluz mustangs were comparatively small and rugged, weighing between 700 and 800 pounds. Straight to concave foreheads are typical head features, and the nose is convex. narrow deep chests predominate, and body muscling is long and tapering. Pare individuals have five or six lumbar vertebrae, a good way to distinguish these from other breeds (Brislawn 1968).

Spanish mustangs come in a variety of colours including black, bay, brown, chestnut, dun, buckskin, palomino, cream and pinto (including tobiano, overo and calico types).

The Spanish Andaluz mustang is now extinct in Spain, but its Iberian features have survived in Spanish colonial horses which predominate in wild horse herds. Pure descendents therefore comprise a genetic relic, a direct remnant of Conquistador times.

Most of Canada's surviving free-ranging wild horses have never been scientifically scrutinized, but DNA testing of several mustangs captured from wild horse herds in Alberta show genetic patterns confirming direct descendance from ancestral Spanish mustang stock (Howlett, pers.comm.). The so-called "Spanish mustang trail" from Mexico terminated on the Canadian Prairies, and ancestors of Andaluz origin presumably made their way to Canada as migrant wild horses, or as animals traded among Native tribes. Although so far it is not possible to confirm all current wild horses in western Canada have pure Andaluz ancestry, the fact that some do is clear and irrefutable evidence that they are not merely escaped domestics, but horses that predate European homesteading in the Canadian West.

The Iberian DNA pattern also occurs in wild horses in Utah and Oregon.

Out of an estimated two million wild horses in Canada in the 19th Century, only about 2000 remained by the 1970's. Current population is approximately 200. About 100 occur in the Siffleur Wilderness Area near Sundre in southern Alberta, fewer than 70 in the Chilcotin Mountains, and a much smaller total number at other sites in Alberta, the locations of which are kept secret to protect the horses (Howlett, pers.comm.).

Human greed foredoomed Canada's wild horses. Although they were not systematically destroyed by any government policy to hobble Plains Indians, as was ruthlessly perpetrated in the United States, horses in Canada were rounded up for slaughter for use in the pet food industry, fetched $400.-$500., and the resulting economic incentive was compelling.

Government sponsored wild horse roundups took place until 1976, when the practice was terminated. By then, only trivial remnant numbers remained on the open range. Apart from those killed for pet food, others were destroyed as nuisances or for bear bait. Some were shot for sport. Wild horses encountered on private land are still unprotected by any federal or provincial law.

A similar pattern of collapse in wild horse populations took place in the United States, where numbers fell from more than two million in 1900 to fewer than 15,000 at present.

In 1971, the United States put into place Public Law 92-195, which protects wild horses from "capture, branding, harassment, or death" because they "contribute to the diversity of life forms." There is no comparable Canadian legislation, federally nor provincially. A private members' bill to protect wild horses in the 1970's was so dramatically amended that it failed utterly to help free-ranging stock.

Wild horses in Canada are considered escaped domestic animals, not wildlife. They are not contemplated for protection under Canada's Species at Risk Act, and wildlife officials in Alberta and British Columbia refuse to identify them as wildlife meriting protection under various wildlife conservation laws. Their stigmatization as feral escapees from farms and ranches, although of dubious foundation, robs them of specific protection.

At the 100,000 acre Siffleur Wilderness Area, public access is controlled by the Alberta governemnt. Natural boundaries tend to confine wild horses to home ranges, and so long as they remain in the wilderness area, they are comparatively safe, except from poaching. But, those that wander outside have no protection whatsoever.

It has been estimated there are only about 3,000 wild horses of Spanish mustang ancestry in North America, perhaps 100 in Canada (Howlett, pers.comm.). The Canadian population is especially vulnerable owing to the smallness of its gene pool, scarcely sufficient to ensure future viability. Any additional losses bear corresponding genetic risks.

Discussion and Conclusions:

The original ancestors of all modern horses arose and underwent preliminary evolution in North America. Although the physical characteristics of the earliest Equus species might have been dramatically different from those of Equus caballus, the fact remains that the main lineage originated on the North American continent. Horses are therefore indisputably native fauna, despite a multiplicity genotypic variations.

That Equus ancestors eventually died out in North America (although as-yet unconfirmed evidence disprove that hypothesis) does not obliterate their North American origin. Nor does subsequent evolution elsewhere over a period of perhaps 8000 years make them non-indigenous.

The precise mechanism by which Canada's wild horses arrived and established themselves has yet to be determined. Some might have penetrated into Canada by natural range expansion of free-ranging mustangs from herds of wild horses in the United States. Others might be feral escapees from Native horse herds gleaned from wild stock, or trading or raiding, acquired from Natives in the United States.

Some could have derived from stock other than Spanish mustangs, larger animals brought to western Canada, especially British Block Horses, intended for use on farms and ranches.

Inherent timidness of Canada's surviving free-ranging wild horses, and preliminary genetic testing of some individuals from wild herds, confirms these animals do not derive from escaped domestic Block farm/ranch stock. Their shy behaviour is consistent with a long history of sustained freedom, perhaps living in a wild state for several hundred years. The term `feral' applies only insofar as to reflect a free-ranging life subsequent to a preliminary period in captivity that is likely to have dated to Spanish colonial times almost 500 years ago.

Genetic patterns in wild mustangs from free-ranging Canadian herds confirm direct Iberian descent from an historic bloodline long-since extinct in Europe. These animals therefore comprise an important genetic reservoir of horse population critical to the Plains Indian cultures, and is significant element of faunal biodiversity in the Canadian West. It would seem imprudent and disagreeable to allow the genotype to disappear through inadequate protective strategies. Federal/Provincial remedial action should intercede before the gene pool in Canada declines beyond an irretrievably low extreme. Preservation of representative individual mustangs of pure ancestry in captivity is not a suitable alternative to conservation of free-ranging animals.

An umbrella of protective legislation in Canada aims to protect species whose numbers have fallen to levels as critically low as is the case for wild mustangs. So far, governments have opted for radical expedient of refusing to designate wild horses as `wildlife', owing to a presumption of recent escape from captivity, a premise that fails under close scrutiny.

Much inconsistency permeates Canadian wildlife protection laws. Mute swans, which are not native to North America, and occur in the wild as a result of recent escapes from captivity, are fully protected under migratory Birds Convention Act and its regulations. So are Canada geese raised in captivity and subsequently released into the wild, such as the nucleic resident Canada goose population in southern Ontario. Many upland game-bird species, including ring-necked pheasants and wild turkeys, raised in captivity and later released into the wild are protected by provincial law. Clearly, the circumstance of previous captivity does not necessarily prelude classification as `wildlife'. In light of these prominent examples, classification of Canada's wild mustangs as escaped domestic not meriting wildlife status seems unwarranted and unjustifiable. Such a debatable and delusive attitude on the parts of wildlife management officials deprives free-ranging mustangs of protection vital to their survival.

It is recommended that these mustangs, so pivotal in the heritage of the Canadian West, are a national treasure and ought to be fully protected accordingly.
 
 

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank Bruce Naylor, Director of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaentology at Drumheller, Alberta and Richard Harington, Curator of Quaternary Zoology Emeritus at the Canadian Museum of Nature for their constructive comments on Equus occurrences in Canada. Remarks by Steve Howlett, a wild Mustang specialist at Dugald, Manitoba provided important historical perspective.

Literature Cited:

Brislawn, R. 1968. Skeletal structure of the Spanish Mustang

The Spanish mustang news. April-June

Diaz, B. 1521. The discovery and conquest of Mexico

A.P. Maudslay trans. Farrar, Straus, Cudahy, New York.

Harington, R. 1977. Pleistocene mammals of the Yukon Territory. Ph.D Thesis

University of Alberta, Edmonton. 1060 pp.

Henry, A 1809. Travels and adventures in Canada and the Indian territories between the years 1760 and 1776. Repr. Hurtig,

Edmonton, 1969. 347 pp.

Jopling, A.V., W.N. Irving and B.F. Beebe. 1981.

Stratigraphic, sedimentological and faunal evidence for the occurrence of pre-Sangemonian artefacts in Northern Yukon.

Arctic 34(1): 3-33.

Martin, P. Nature of extinction and causes. In pleistocene ecology and biography of North America 200 geography. C.L. Nubbs (Ed.), Washington. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Publication 51.

Thompson, D. 1850. David Thompson's travels in western North America, 1784-1812. V.G. Hopwood (Ed.). Macmillian, Toronto, 1971.

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