Two men have now been formally charged in an animal care case that’s reached national notoriety after the seizure of 100 horses and other livestock from a northeastern Alberta farm.
The Alberta SPCA said in a release Wednesday that Axel Hinz-Schleuter and Dale Huber have been charged under the Animal Protection Act with 12 counts of allowing animals to be in distress and failure to provide duties of care.
Both men are to appear April 21 at Provincial Court in Vegreville, the society said. Allegations against them have not been proven in court.
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The SPCA said its peace officers on Feb. 26 seized 100 horses, 40 rabbits, 13 chickens, seven sheep and five goats from a farm near Andrew, about 110 km northeast of Edmonton. The officers also found the carcasses of 27 horses and a number of rabbits, chickens and ducks, the SPCA said.
An SPCA official was quoted in a CBC News report Wednesday that some of the remaining horses “have been underfed for some time.”
Hinz-Schleuter had previously been convicted and fined $1,000 under the same Act in 2005, but that conviction didn’t include an order that allowed peace officers to access the property and check on the animals, the SPCA said.
“We only gained legal grounds to investigate once we received a complaint,” said Morris Airey, SPCA’s director of animal protection services, in the society’s release. “With the complaint we received in late February, we were able to discover the dire situation and take action.”
The SPCA said the 100 horses are now getting “a high level of care under veterinary supervision” at Keno Hills Stable at Ardrossan, about 30 km east of Edmonton.
Airey had said in a previous release Tuesday that the horses are expected to be placed eventually at “good homes” after they recover. “We’ve been fortunate to have had numerous offers from the public to provide homes for the horses,” he said.
