Wild Ponies, Plastic Bags, and Carrots

We walk over sandy ground and spot ants with large bodies moving in lines across the forest floor. They could be impressive, but all my attention, everything I’m searching for, is horse-shaped: I scan the area for the Exmoor ponies that live here, not far from the coast, in a Danish nature reserve.

On this day, we see them as we emerge from the forest and walk for a while through gorse bushes: dark brown spots a few hundred meters away. We approach slowly. The closer we get, the more details emerge. Their coats are thick now in winter. I see their dark muzzles, more and more of the shades in their coats: some sandy brown, some chocolate, some almost black. It’s a herd, a group of mares and foals from the summer and the previous year, and we also spot the stallion.

We crouch down, not wanting to drive the horses away… and then the scene changes before our eyes. First, I notice a few of the horses lift their heads and look in the same direction. Then, the horses begin to move. We follow their movement with our eyes: a man and a woman are coming from the western hill.

Suddenly, our wild horses don’t seem so wild anymore. The pair is carrying plastic bags from a discount store. Red and Blue.

From afar, we see them take carrots out of the bags and hold them out to the horses. Some horses come close to eat the carrots from their hands; for others, they throw the vegetables.

What we experience this day illustrates a conflict that has been fiercely debated in the nature reserve for several years now between the rewilding initiative and activists. On one side are the proponents of the rewilding initiative (roughly: horses and cattle live without extra feeding and with only basic veterinary monitoring, managing themselves in the area with the goal of promoting biodiversity through grazing behavior). On the other side are activists, reportedly mainly from the equestrian world, who see this as a betrayal of the horses (roughly: horses are domesticated animals that cannot be left to fend for themselves; they need food, appropriate shelter, veterinary care, and perhaps cognitive stimulation).

I find it a misunderstanding of activism, both wrong and dangerous to the well-being of the horses, when people feed the animals on their own initiative. Equally wrong and oversimplified is when the press claims that the equestrian activists need to “correct their understanding of nature.” And when supporters of rewilding see only the ecological context and benefits of horses rather than engaging in a critical and honest discussion about the individual needs of the animals.

How can the polarized debate between "wild" and "domesticated" horses become more nuanced?

To be continued!

Friederike

In the mean time, you can engage with the debate about the ethics of rewilding by reading this article by ethicists Clare Palmer, Christian Gamborg and Peter Sandoe : Horses for Courses? How rewilding might challenge the ways we care for animals.