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Dartmoor hill pony cull feared

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HorseGuy

HorseGuy

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May 27, 2025
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New farming laws mean that Dartmoor Ponies are at risk of becoming extinct due to new culling rules. :(

How ironic that one of England's most famous wild animals which have lived and grazed on Dartmoor since the bronze age are now at risk of becoming extinct due to new 're-wilding' laws. This makes me so angry! Why do they have to meddle with everything? Can't they just leave nature alone?
 
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Just to clarify. This isn't to do with any new rewilding laws but rather it's a consequence of decades of mismanagement by the Dartmoor Commons Council and various government bodies. Livestock have been allowed to degrade important wild areas and the lack of management has come back to bite them. As is typical these days though it will be spun to make the environmental campaigners look like the bad guys.
 
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Buckshot said:
I can't see this happening.
Can you imagine how popular any government would be if they culled horses?!
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Yes is would be an instant vote loser for any government which doesn't step in to stop it happening. That one fact gives me hope for the ponies future.
 
Buckshot said:
I can't see this happening.
Can you imagine how popular any government would be if they culled horses?!
Click to expand...

It's important to clarify that the government hasn't proposed any kind of cull. They've just told the DCC to comply with the current regulations regarding land management. The farmers are saying that they may have to cull the horses to prioritise other types of livestock. Horses are less damaging than sheep in grazing terms but are less profitable (depending on how you value these things).

The Government are legally required to reverse the decline in biodiversity in this country by 2030. People will have to realise at some point that we're seeing radical actions being taken because biodiversity has gone off a cliff edge and we're a lot closer to some very worrying impacts from that than they think. The majority of people I speak to don't seem to realise how bad things are and what needs to be done to stabilise things let alone reverse the problem.
 
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nigelp said:
We are an odd nation. Lose our minds when ponies are potentially going to have numbers restricted (they could just take the ponies out of the sheep category for grazing) but think nothing of killing millions of chickens, cows and pigs each year.
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I'm mostly a vegetarian although I do eat lots of fish and the occasional bit of pork so I'm well aware of my own self-hypocrisy here. However I did stop virtually all meat some years ago because the way many of the animals bread for food are treated makes be feel uncomfortable.
 
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Just to back this up a bit, the official data says that only 62% of SSSIs are in favourable condition or are on their way back to being favourable after being assessed as degraded from their original designation. That can mean that there is a management plan in place to repair them but not necessarily that action is underway. The other 38% of some of our most important biodiversity sites are failing to meet that 2030 deadline at the moment.
 
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Many years ago, (1980s) I used to help a lady called Sylvia rescue ponies from the dartmoor pony sales. Most of them used to go for for meat. Many were healthy animals, and we used to break them in, and find homes either as riding ponies or companions to other horses.
They realy don't need to be culled.
We have ponies here on exmoor and they are not a problem, as they have been properly managed for years. No culling happens.
The problem is the farmers mixing breeds, watering down the native dartmoor pony stock, which is no longer a pure breed, and not bothering to manage them properly.
They get money for pony meat. They are realy often treated worse than cattle and sheep. Ignored most of the year untill round up, pony sale for dog food, and cash in pocket, having done very little to look after them all year. Not everyone of course, but many do.
Why else let a little Shetland pony run wild on dartmoor? Kids outgrew it, bung it in with the wild herd and problem solved. Cash in pocket with no effort, or vet and feed costs. I've seen it.
 
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There, see? Proper management.

It always interests me to see the traditional system in the New Forest.

But...Dogs and cats gotta eat too. (and horses make good leather)
 
Just had a look at my Newstfeed, and saw a headline.

How to save dartmoor ponies..eat them.

Now I havnt read the article as it won't let me unless I pay, which I won't do. I think it's the telegraph. Now, so how on earth do you save a creature from being killed by killing and eating it.?
Using the word culled instead of killed is just an attempt to soften the language, but it means the same thing whichever way you look at it.
Besides British are pretty disgusted at the idea of eating horsemeat, tho the french love it, it wasnt just about the deciet of doctoing the contents, it was about what it was doctored with, remember the hoo ha some years ago when beef products were found to contain horse meat?
Is it going to be offered in supermarkets all nicely packaged as healthy fat free alternative to beef?
As I say, I don't know the contents of the article as I can't get past the pay wall, but if someone can link the article so that others could read it here, I'd be grateful.
It's hard to comment properly when all you have is a headline, but I must admit, my first thought was WHAT? THEY ARE ALREADY CULLED FOR DOG FOOD, WHAT IS THIS NEW IDEA THAT WILL SAVE PONIES BY KILLING THEM FOR FOOD?
My braincell got scrambled!
It's a bit like saying we will stop littering by fining people who litter..something that already happens.
Brilliant thinking eh?

In somewhat more hopeful news, 200,000 people have already signed a petition to save the dartmoor ponies ..again headline in horse and hound, unread because I cannot reject all cookies.
Please have a look and sign if you feel able to do so.
 
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Woody girl said:
Just had a look at my Newstfeed, and saw a headline.

How to save dartmoor ponies..eat them.

Now I havnt read the article as it won't let me unless I pay, which I won't do. I think it's the telegraph. Now, so how on earth do you save a creature from being killed by killing and eating it.?
Using the word culled instead of killed is just an attempt to soften the language, but it means the same thing whichever way you look at it.
Besides British are pretty disgusted at the idea of eating horsemeat, tho the french love it, it wasnt just about the deciet of doctoing the contents, it was about what it was doctored with, remember the hoo ha some years ago when beef products were found to contain horse meat?
Is it going to be offered in supermarkets all nicely packaged as healthy fat free alternative to beef?
As I say, I don't know the contents of the article as I can't get past the pay wall, but if someone can link the article so that others could read it here, I'd be grateful.
It's hard to comment properly when all you have is a headline, but I must admit, my first thought was WHAT? THEY ARE ALREADY CULLED FOR DOG FOOD, WHAT IS THIS NEW IDEA THAT WILL SAVE PONIES BY KILLING THEM FOR FOOD?
My braincell got scrambled!
It's a bit like saying we will stop littering by fining people who litter..something that already happens.
Brilliant thinking eh?

In somewhat more hopeful news, 200,000 people have already signed a petition to save the dartmoor ponies ..again headline in horse and hound, unread because I cannot reject all cookies.
Please have a look and sign if you feel able to do so.
Click to expand...
Well by giving the horses a monetary / product value then it would give a financial reason for them to be kept.

Anyway, from what I’ve read they’re not actually proposing a cull are they? It’s more around grazing and how that is then managed.
 
Stew said:
Well by giving the horses a monetary / product value then it would give a financial reason for them to be kept.

Anyway, from what I’ve read they’re not actually proposing a cull are they? It’s more around grazing and how that is then managed.
Click to expand...
How is culling them to reduce grazing pressure, and eating them not talking about killing, sorry, culling them?
They are already and for at least 40+ yrs that I know of, been sold for dogmeat. I used to go to the sales to rescue as many as i could. The abbotoirs trucks were there in their dozens.back in the 1980s, eventualy they used to try not to notice my bids and knock them down to the butchers for the cheapest possible price.
My friend Sonia couldn't bid as they knew her and ignored her bids, so I took over untill they realised that I was bidding on her behalf.
What they are suggesting as a solution already happens anyway. It's not new. If what's already happening isn't viable, why are they suggesting it as a solution?
It's nothing but gaslighting and stupid.
Please, it's not a massive problem like they are making out, it's about proper management like on exmoor, the new forest and many other places.
They just want to have the pasture for more sheep and cattle, which actualy do more damage to the land.
Greedy landowners again.
 
Woody girl said:
How is culling them to reduce grazing pressure, and eating them not talking about killing, sorry, culling them?
They are already and for at least 40+ yrs that I know of, been sold for dogmeat. I used to go to the sales to rescue as many as i could. The abbotoirs trucks were there in their dozens.back in the 1980s, eventualy they used to try not to notice my bids and knock them down to the butchers for the cheapest possible price.
My friend Sonia couldn't bid as they knew her and ignored her bids, so I took over untill they realised that I was bidding on her behalf.
What they are suggesting as a solution already happens anyway. It's not new. If what's already happening isn't viable, why are they suggesting it as a solution?
It's nothing but gaslighting and stupid.
Please, it's not a massive problem like they are making out, it's about proper management like on exmoor, the new forest and many other places.
They just want to have the pasture for more sheep and cattle, which actualy do more damage to the land.
Greedy landowners again.
Click to expand...
So have they actually said that they’re looking to cull?
 
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