Wild stallions near Highland Valley Copper Mine in Logan Lake.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Prescott Patterson
November 05, 2023 - 9:00 AM
The legacy of a Logan Lake cowboy who died of lung cancer in July of last year is living on through a book about wild horses written by a biologist in the Kootenays.
Prescott Patterson kept mostly to himself as he spent several years studying and caring for the Highland Valley wild horses which make the land around Logan Lake and the Highland Valley Copper Mine their home. He learned the herds' routes and behaviours and advocated for government protection of them and the land they roam on.
Kootenay-based author and biologist Wayne McCrory has been studying the wild horse herds in other areas of the province for two decades.
Both men are, and were, passionate about the welfare of the wild herds in the province that are surrounded by controversy and mostly left unprotected by the government. McCrory recently published a book and included one of Patterson’s many photos of the Highland Valley Horses along with a short write-up on them.
“I’m sorry I never met the guy, his heart was in the right place and wild horse protectors are so few and far between,” McCrory said of Patterson’s death in a previous interview with iNFOnews.ca.
McCrory loved wild horses since he grew up in New Denver but later learned “the horses were considered in-bred, alien ferals that were bad for the grassland ecosystems and had to go through bounty hunts and round-ups,” according to his media release issued October 30.
READ MORE: The true story of Grand Chief Nicola, told by his descendant
A bear biologist, McCrory went to the west Chilcotin two decades ago to study grizzly bears for the Xeni Gwet’in/ Tˆsilhqot’in First Nation and ended up studying the wild horses there.
In working with Tsilhqot’in knowledge-keepers in the Brittany Triangle in the west Chilcotin, McCrory learned the horses had been there well before settlers arrived and were “a rich, integral part of their culture and ecosystem lifeway” and he didn’t see any evidence of over-grazing or overpopulation.
READ MORE: BC will add prescribed burns to fire management toolkit
Two decades ago the Xeni Gwet’in created North America’s largest wild horse preserve in the area and McCrory went on to study the history, evolution and genetics of wild horses that is now contained in his new book The Wild Horses of the Chilcotin: Their History and Future.
Published by Harbour Publishing the books are on sale at New Denver’s Raven’s Nest and Otter Books in Nelson and will be appearing in Chapters bookstores soon. They can also be ordered online here.
This book was written by a Kootenay-based biologist, Wayne McCrory.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Wayne McCrory
To contact a reporter for this story, email Shannon Ainslie or call 250-819-6089 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here.
News from © iNFOnews, 2023