Nik - KOTM
2013-11-16 09:13:06
In years gone by, in living memory, there were many herds of up to a total 30,000 animals on the moor. These numbers are down to about 3,000 (or less) and the auction sites of Tavistock and Chagford are looking like they are about to close down. It is rare that these animals are bought for more than £10.50 each, and these animals that fail to meet this price then have a bleak outlook... the slaughterhouse!
The Dartmoor Pony I think should be made into a protected species ... but I have no idea on how this should be funded or how to go about getting these unique creatures which are such an icon of Dartmoor saved.
Some thoughts I have are probably a bit far fetched, which include sponsoring the farmers to look after some of the ponies, but to do it through a charitable status.
What we don't need is silly girls buying these ponies and then releasing them back onto the moor, as happened a few years back when they sold for a £1 each, a lot of them were rounded up again and then sold to the abattoirs.
Any other ideas?
reg the bullmastiff
2013-12-06 15:12:27
Dartmoor without the Pones? How could the tourist board let in happen? DNP use an image of the iconic Dartmoor Pony as a welcome sign as you enter the moor from any direction, maybe they should be doing something to protect the breed?
Dartymoor
2014-02-08 07:45:56
Sorry for the delay in replying, don't often come here now. But with yet another wild and wet weekend, reading dartmoor websites is as close as I'm willing to get today!
A few points on this;
Horses and ponies now have a "minimum value" below which they cannot be sold. They are also required to have a horse passport and be microchipped at the time of sale, which with Dartmoors is done after the auctions at Tavistock and Chagford in the autumn. Uli the vet turns them over very quickly, and there's a trailer with computer and printer for producing the passports.
So the figures quoted aren't quite accurate once you add this all together. The cheapest pony would be (I think) ten or fifteen guineas, the chip and passport about £25 on top. Plus vat and auctions fees (the guinea fee doesn't cut it any more, with auctioneers adding a buyers premium of 10-20%).
Don't hold me to those exact figures, it's years since I bought a pony at auction, but I try to attend at least one of the two main ones each year.
These measures were added to reduce the transport of live animals across europe for meat, and there is little other market for dartmoor ponies - or any ponies at present. The economy has greatly affected the ability of many people to have a horse for their kid or themselves. A lot of ponies are shot on the farm and sold to zoos for animal meat, I know of one farmer who makes an income from that.
On top of that, I recently had a conversation with the son of another Dartmoor farmer near Dartmeet who says European subsidies now mean he is being paid /not/ to graze ponies on the moor. I haven't verified that, but the source was pretty reliable. He says he's also cut back sheep and cattle grazing on the moor under the system and is better off because of it.
Dartmoor without ponies is not the same and I would personally like a lot more, but nobody seems to have a sustainable answer so far. They're a livestock product with little market. As a walker, I much prefer ponies because they're lighter on the ground, don't poach it as much as cattle and eat more of the intrusive species (bracken and the tips of gorse). And the smell of ground heavily soiled by cattle or sheep is unpleasant to me, but pony poo has, if anything, a sweeter or no smell. (This sounds weird!)
Some figures (again, from memory, but if not accurate I'm happy they're indicative).
Around 1910 there were an estimated 100,000 ponies on the moor, mostly shetland/dartmoor breeds bred for mining.
1950s saw this down to 50,000.
In 2010, an estimated 1,000 ponies remain on the moor.
What's the answer? I haven't a clue. Lots of people and groups as well as the commoners have their own ideas but often in disagreement with each other (such as the recent encouragement by one such group of using pony leather for drumskins!) - but perhaps this bittiness is because there is no great solution.
Nik - KOTM
2014-02-09 22:57:39
The only solution I can see for the poor ENDAGERED pony is for them to be used in some manufacturing labour, but by the time this is realised by the establishment it will be too late.