A quarter of these horses live in Exmoor in Great Britain, which gave them a name. Here horses have survived without the care of man for centuries. The first written mention of them dates from 1086. At the end of the Second World War, however, they came to the brink of extinction. At that time it has remained just under fifty. Although the people in recent decades trying purposefully to protect and their number has increased significantly, their fate is still uncertain, experts say the United Kingdom.
The future of the rare horses paradoxically threatens one of the selected methods for their salvation. "Some organizations are trying to increase the attractiveness of these animals for breeders, and thus their number, so that some foals from breeding flocks and those annually caught in pastures domesticates and offer them as riding horses, "explains Dalibor Dostal. This does not change their physical characteristics and lost the appearance of wild horses. breeders to look for animals that are slightly longer legs, neck and head, so they are more suitable for riding and work smarter. generation after generation will and body proportions domesticated Exmoor deviate from the original. The stud book is while both wild and domesticated animals still listed as Exmoor pony.
Its wildness may yet lose horses and wildlife in British pastures. "Some irresponsible because people want to enjoy the old and obsolete domestic horses freedom, or just want to get rid of pets who are tired of and emit between wild horses on exmoorských plains" describes Dalibor Dostal. Although wild horses from Exmoor in nature with other breeds are crossed too readily, apparently they have been such cases recorded.
Domestic horses arrival at Exmoor pastures are often not captured, fearing the reactions of fighters for animal rights. "And this is a similarly absurd, as if the Polish Bialowieza, where they live wild herd of rare bison, roamed the American Bison escaped farmed," says Dalibor Dostal.
Foreign horse and pose a serious risk to the purebred wild populations. Genetic studies in recent years have shown that just horses from Exmoor its appearance and color to match the original wild horses of Europe. Recently, it was also at exmoorských horses identified several unique genetic markers, which are the only shared with indigenous wild horses from Europe.
Because of these risks growing importance of breeding herds of wild horses from Exmoor in reserves outside the UK. Two such herds living since last year on the steppes of the former military area Milovice.
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