Appalling plan to cull horses

Re: “Saving our feral horses,” by Karin Nelson, Letters, Jan. 28. Are we completely nuts in Alberta? A plan by the Department of Environment and Sustainable Resource Development to cull 200 wild horses out of a herd of perhaps 1,000 for reasons of “public safety” is appalling.

Alberta already has garnered global attention for exploiting the environment, yet we’re somehow itching to round up a few hundred feral horses and send them to slaughter.

Surely a province with almost triple the land mass of the United Kingdom could find room for a few hundred wild horses. Does this government not understand the PR value of having a modest herd of wild, majestic animals — a herd with over 100 years of history — as a hallmark of our love of the past and at least a minor nod to nature?

Must every wildlife management issue be dealt by grabbing a case of beer and circling the pickup trucks?