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Oct. 20, 2003 — Western Canada's last population of wild horses is being threatened by the smoldering remnants of forest fires that ravaged large parts of British Columbia this summer.

As many as a third of the 200 animals believed to be descended from Spanish horses brought to North America in the early 16th century and released into the wild may starve to death over the winter, conservationists said.

They said it all depends on whether peat fires burning in meadows in the Chilcotin Valley where they graze on grass and sedge remain unchecked.

Wildlife biologists fear too many deaths could endanger the survival of the herd.

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"Winter is very severe up there and the horses are not as fat as they should be now. They have to go into winter well-fed, well-padded," said David Williams, head of the Friends of the Nemaiah Valley Conservation Group.

So far, a third of the meadows have been destroyed and a dozen larger ones that the horses, as well as bears and moose, rely on most for food could vanish entirely, said biologist Wayne McCrory.

"These meadows took thousands of years to develop and they're being reduced to ash and rock. If the fires are allowed to burn, there won't be much of them left by Christmas and they won't grow back anytime soon," he said.

But fire officials are wary of trying to extinguish the slow-burning peat fires just as the weather is starting to cool.

Pumps and pipes tend to freeze in the winter and firefighters would be forced to work in cold, wet conditions, and be housed at night in expensive, heated accommodations rather than tents.

And most of them are fatigued from fighting fires throughout the summer, said Roy Simpson, manager of the Cariboo Fire Centre in Williams Lake.

Fires typically consume 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of forests in the province each year.

But this year, a whopping 264,000 hectares (652,000 acres), were destroyed, including a third of the wild horses' habitat or about 30,000 hectares (74,100 acres). The province spent ten times its annual budget of $40 million ($30 million U.S.) to douse the flames.

Fighting the peat fires would cost an additional $1 million ($760,000 U.S.)

"Fire is a natural process. There was probably another significant event in that region in the past 150 years and the horses survived it," Simpson said about their plight.

There were once hundreds of thousands of wild horses in Western Canada, but recent surveys suggest there are now less than 3,000, mostly in British Columbia and the foothills of Alberta.

Unlike other herds in North America, the Chilcotin Valley horses are part of a unique wilderness ecosystem that includes a variety of predators such as wolves, grizzlies and mountain lions.

Friends of the Nemaiah Valley and local First Nations have considered feeding the horses hay over the winter, but said this would merely be a stopgap measure, David Williams said. And moving the animals is not an option.

"They're wild animals that have lived there hundreds of years. It's like saying, 'let's round up the bears and move them somewhere else.' It's not practical," Williams said.