2 Exmoor ponies are getting their teeth stuck into vital conservation work on the Isle of Wight.
Logan and Luther are the first 2 grazers to Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust’s rewilding project at Wilder Little Duxmore.
Their task is simple – nibble, browse and graze the land to encourage habitat restoration and help nature’s recovery. It’s the first time that the Trust has used ponies to help with rewilding and they join the existing cohort of conservation grazing livestock, including native breeds of cattle and sheep.
In the coming months, they will also be joined on-site by saddleback pigs and belted Galloway cows, from Nunwell Home Farm, to play an important role in shaping the landscape for the benefit of local wildlife and the recovery of nature on the former arable farm.
Together they will create a mosaic habitat structure by browsing scrub and selectively grazing herbaceous vegetation, creating wallows in the land, or breaking up dense grasses to encourage botanical diversity, deploying livestock as ecosystem engineers can be hugely beneficial for wildlife.
Extensive grazing over a large area encourages biodiversity by helping to create the ideal conditions for a wide range of insects, birds, reptiles, and plants to exist.
The Trust purchased Little Duxmore in 2020 and has seen dramatic results in the fight against pollution in the Solent. Specialists say the scheme, which saw 40 hectares of former farmland returned to nature, has far exceeded expectations and demonstrates the effectiveness of its rewilding project. The results are the first in the UK to show such a significant decrease in soil mineral nitrogen at a rewilding project, with a drop of 47% in just under 2 years.
The introduction of the 1-year-old ponies – Britain’s oldest native breed – is being overseen by Jayne Chapman, Senior Nature Recovery Manager and Jamie Marsh, Director of Wilder Wight and Wilder Seas.
Jayne says:
“Exmoor ponies are selective grazers and will switch their diet according to the season, which encourages floral diversity.
“The ponies’ teeth are adapted to allow them to graze coarse vegetation like gorse, bramble and thistles that could otherwise overwhelm the heathland landscape.
“Their small, sharp hooves create bare ground and vital edge habitat in heathland, which can support rare invertebrates, birds, and low-growing plants.
“Another advantage of these semi-feral ponies is they are extremely hardy thanks to a supremely efficient double-layered winter coat that allows them to withstand harsh weather. They also avoid close contact with people, so co-exist well alongside visitors.”
Jamie Marsh adds:
“I am delighted that our first grazers have arrived on site and I’m looking forward to the other livestock arriving later this year.
“Wilder Little Duxmore has already been a huge success. It is fantastic to see wildlife returning and the restoration of natural habitats. Soil survey results from the site are the first in the UK to show such a significant decrease in soil mineral nitrogen, with an average drop of 47% in just under two years.
“With the help of these Exmoor ponies and the other livestock, we’re hoping to see new habitats emerging and wildlife flourishing.
“It’s not only the terrestrial environment that is benefitting from rewilding, the reduction of nutrients on site, particularly nitrates, will also help to protect important marine habitats in the Solent.”
What an absolute load of nonsense – exmoor ponies are not native to the island for a start (hint in the name there) and as far as re-wilding goes, it is a deliberate destruction of productive farmland (land that humans have farmed for tens of thousands of years) – these play god Marxists trying to create their avatar utopia at the expense of food production are exactly the same sort of people who want us to continue importing millions of people with no way of actually feeding them – it is ideological zealotry at its worst – who cares about mineral nitrogen when average people can’t afford to eat? Only middle class greenies and socialists, that’s who
If our government supported farming for food properly and it was financially sound for farmers to grow food then food production and food security wouldn’t be falling by such a massive amount. Food production can still take place with livestock grazing on conserved land aswell so nobody looses. And as for our governments complete lack of control of immigration, well you should write to your mp and demand he addresses that in parliament. Good luck with that.
For a start it didnt say they were native to the island specifically but native to the UK which last I checked the island is within UK, secondly, the uk hasnt enough land to sustain all areas of food production so importing food is required especially since alot of vitamins and such cant be grown here at least without variety anyway. And I care about mineral and nitrogen damage since it’s the building block of destroying the earth… if vegetation arent getting good enough minerals and nutrients then there nkt going to produce food for bugs then the bugs die out etc etc eventually the land wont sustain us because vegetation binds the soil etc etc dk I really need to educate you on the science or are you going to carry on ejaculating?
What are you taking about? the land won’t sustain us?? It has been taken fully out of food production so it’s not sustaining any human any more – maybe it’s you who need educating. When productive arable farmland producing foodstuffs for humans is converted into an artificially created ‘wild’ environment growing no crops for humans then it can, by definition, not sustain any human population – unless of course our population is drastically reduced to near nothingness and you revert to a hunter gatherer existence, when your re-wilded area would very quickly be stripped of its wildlife, unless people started to farm it and husband the animals of course – oh hang on a minute
I think lockdown is evident enough that nature can rewild on it’s own it’s the domestic side of things we got to cover. I appreciate the sentiment here but having ponies go on first when they bite closer to the roots will leave little food for when the Galloway’s come in which they do not take the grass to its roots because they dont have upper teeth. Then the pigs will just churn up the land if theres not adequate space. But I’m open to see if it works
Fantastic! This is exactly why I have a £10/month DD to the Hants & IOW Wildlife Trust. Well done Jayne and Jamie, appreciated.
As the saying goes, A fool and their money are easily parted
To be honest governor I have a feeling that your one of those geezers who goes to the pub every evening after work lol my point is, is that I can guarantee you do something equally as, how you say, foolish? Ah yes what was that, hoistered by your own petard
Just wondering why Exmoor and not New Forest ponies?
I was thinking the same thing
So why were the ponies that lived very happily on Ventnor/St Boniface Down removed 15-20 years ago?? IF ponies are much needed for ‘rewilding’ then what scheme was put in place to force the removal of the large number of wild ponies that were whisked away one day, never to be seen again? Rewilding makes one wonder who or what caused the ‘unwilding’ in the first place. and are we seeing yet another scheme to enhance nothing and cost thousands only for it to be ‘unwilded’ in years to come? To make a place wild takes no real effort, just leave it alone and Nature will take over.
That is not the case. The large mammals that originally inhabited the native environment are no longer present so they need to be replaced by horses, cattle, and pigs to generate a “wild” landscape with much greater diversity.
Ridiculous.. ponies and ragwort do not mix and the law states that you can actually be fined for having ragwort growing on your land whilst having grazing animals, i am made to clear the land my horses graze, not that i would be stupid enough to let horses graze with ragwort, the ponies are native to Britain (not the isle of wight) and don’t generally eat it, but with the amount thats growing, which will double by next year which then will make it very hard for the ponies etc to avoid eating it especially in its small rosette stage, something seriously needs to be done, the land is a disgrace and far from rewilding, Defra/authorities need to step up and take action,just as they would with anybody choosing to graze animals with ragwort
Who writes this rubbish? Since when has grazing animals helped in re Wilding???….a complete contradiction…to rewild an area, you leave it for nature to do things naturally…so I’m not surprised living in twisted values Britain this is written..
Large grazing mammals were part of our landscape when humans first arrived and many plants have co-evolved with large browsing mammals. Omitting them from the landscape would produce a very different wild environment that would support less diversity.