Starving horses receive treatment
Written by Christine Skorepa
Citizen staff
Friday, 13 March 2009
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FIRST NATIONS

The 12 starving horses found along with five dead horses at a First Nations reserve in the Cariboo have been caught and are now recovering under a veterinarian's care, says the BCSPCA.
The horses, suffering from starvation and exposure, were found this week on Canim Lake Band land and there are another three horses that have been sighted, said Lorie Chortyk, media relations manager for the BCSPCA.
Other reports of between 80 and 1,000 horses in distress are unsubstantiated, Chortyk said.
Kent Kokoska, senior animal protection officer for the Cariboo region, is on site trying to find the three other horses. The area is so remote, Kokoska is out of cellphone range by about four hours, so SPCA's head office is receiving only sporadic updates.
The reserve is 450 square miles and much of the land is inaccessible without a helicopter, Chortyk said, making the search for the horses difficult.
"Those animals are actually the band's horses - I think the situation is that these horses have been abandoned and then they've reproduced and they're running free on reserve land," said Chortyk.
"The band has taken responsibility for the horses so we have issued specific orders about the vet care and nutritional care needed, and the community has donated a lot of hay and food, so the needs of those horses are being taken care of."
The animals are severely emaciated.
The SPCA is following up with who may have originally abandoned the horses and that will provide a challenge, said Chortyk. If owners are tracked down they will look at the situation as a cruelty to animals case.
This case is not unique and Chortyk says it might be because of the extreme snow conditions this year, but there are hundreds of cases just like this, mainly in the northern region of the province.
The trend seems to be that people put their horses out for the winter and whether they return or not is the question.
"It's cheaper to go to auction and get other horses than it is to feed them properly through the winter," said Chortyk.
The BCSPCA does not have the resources to provide shelter and ongoing care to these horses and finding homes for the them after recovery is a big challenge. "It's not like finding an adopter for a kitten," she said.