15 wild horses captured this year in Alberta

After all the debate,emotion andprotests, the wildhorse capture season ended this year with only 15 feral animals beingrounded up.

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The province issued three licences this yearto capture roughly 200wild horses nearSundre.

Licensees can keep the horses for personal useor sell them for slaughter.

Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development says it will perform the yearly feral horse count in the coming weeks.

Then an advisory panel,which consists of veterinarians and a horse industry association, will make a recommendation for a feral horse capture season for fall 2014.

The province said an aerial surveyestimated there was 980 wild horses near Sundre in 2013an increase from 778 in 2012.

But the CanadianWild HorseFoundation says the count was done before massive flooding in Juneand this year's harsh winter, sothe number could bemuch lower.

They wanted the province to hold off on the capture this yearuntil there was a recount done.

Provincial biologists have said in the past theydon't consider the animalstrue wildlife, but rather feral descendants of domestic horses used in logging and mining operations in the early 1900s.

The CanadianWild HorseFoundation, however, argues that the horses are native wildlife and should be protected as such.