In recent weeks, Exmoor ponies have featured on regional and national TV and press as local farmers managing important semi-feral herds speak out to highlight the problems they are having in registering their endangered breed ponies. They are experiencing months and even years of delays in obtaining pedigree passports, which is obstructing the sale of foals and putting some at risk of being culled.
‘The Exmoor Pony Society (EPS) insists on confirming the parents of moorbred foals through DNA testing and it should be a simple process when a DNA hair sample is taken from a foal. However, this relies on the society having the correct DNA profiles in its database for all ponies in each moorland herd and it has become clear that there are problems with this source data
,’ said Dawn Westcott, author and co-founder of the Moorland Exmoor Pony Breeders Group (MEPBG) and Exmoor Pony Project. ‘Some ponies have been missed out, some have incorrect DNA profile information, some can’t be identified through unreadable brands or failed microchips, DNA samples have been lost, mixed up or corrupted and information is recorded incorrectly at inspections, year after year. When DNA samples need further investigation, this is unfortunately only carried out as a ‘favour’ by Weatherbys, with the EPS telling herd owners that it will ‘take the time it takes’, ‘as and when time allows’ - and this can mean months, even years or remain inconclusive. All this has led to difficulties in confirming the parentage of some otherwise perfectly good, pedigree-registerable Exmoor foals.’
Nigel and Maria Floyd own the Tippbarlake Herd which runs on Brendon Common and Rex Milton owns Withypoole Herd 23 which runs on both Anstey and Withypool Commons. Both herd owners are experiencing problems in registering foals from pedigree parents
- and they are not alone. Ponies remain unregistered and unrecognised in herds across the moor, the UK and worldwide.
This should not be confused with the separate issue on Exmoor, where farmers are trying to safeguard the future of a significant population of purebred, non-pedigree Exmoor ponies, who are not currently able to be registered within the EPS stud book
- it has no supplement or upgrading system, like other breeds. Various Exmoor ponies have been missed out or excluded through mistakes and ‘anomalies’ in the registration process, or other circumstances, but they are still true to type, authentic Exmoor ponies. The Exmoor National Park Authority, MEPBG, Rare Breeds Survival Trust, EPS and other stakeholders are currently working with Nottingham University on the Exmoor Pony DNA Whole Genome Project, which will eventually provide a structure for confirming the purity of these ponies so they can be recognised and embraced within the Exmoor pony breed. With a dangerously small gene pool, maximum genetic diversity is vital.
With regard to registering pedigree foals,
the Tippbarlake herd owners are frustrated, not just at the delays in receiving pedigree passports for 2017 foals, but also for foals that both passed inspection and had DNA confirmed, from 2014! And they’ve had no DNA results back from the EPS for 2015 foals, who remain uninspected and unregistered. This has resulted in pedigree colts being culled. Rex Milton is also experiencing ongoing problems registering foals with pedigree parents. He cannot understand why there is any problem when pedigree parents should already be in the EPS database and have DNA profiles. He has regretfully culled ten foals this year.
So why cull foals?
The foals need passports so they can be sold. Some buyers will ‘take a risk’ and buy a foal with a basic ‘Equine-ID’ passport that gives it no status or recognition as an Exmoor pony, but allows it to travel - in the hope of having it upgraded to a pedigree passport as and when DNA results are confirmed. But most people want to know what they’re buying. Last November, there were buyers for Tippbarlake foals after inspection, but the EPS failed to issue even basic ‘Equine ID’ passports until this February. The buyers went elsewhere, causing the herd owner to despair.
It is not easy to find buyers for wild-born, unhandled Exmoor foals, who are able and willing to patiently tame and train them to accept life off the moor. If not sold as ‘cute’ newly weaned foals, they become wilder and stronger as yearlings and it is more difficult to home them. If farms are on wet ground, ponies have to be kept shut in barns for all those months, which is awful for them and unviable for the farmers. So foals must ideally be sold in the autumn - with passports. The upland farms cannot spare the time and resource keeping ponies in ground for months, particularly over the winter. As we’ve all seen over the past weeks, severe weather can make it extremely challenging to keep livestock alive and every square inch is needed.
These farmers maintain their Exmoor pony herds, not for agricultural income, but at considerable cost for reasons of heritage, tradition and a passion to keep them on the moor. Faced with unreasonable registration delays and escalating costs, ponies can get culled and the younger generation of farmers is not so keen on keeping them at all.
‘The EPS has been quoted in the media as saying the blame ‘lies with the herd owners’, that it intends to ‘go on as we are’, and registration in its stud book is ‘voluntary’. However, if herd owners want their ponies to have status and recognition as ‘Exmoor ponies’ the only place to currently register them is with the EPS,’ says Dawn Westcott. ‘Further, they have to pay £50 per pony in advance for DNA testing, along with other registration costs - however long it takes. If the society can’t confirm DNA, it also gets to keep the money… sometimes causing farmers to question whether to put foals forward for inspection at all.
‘Alarmingly, we’ve found EPS officials to be encouraging herd owners not to put perfectly good, pedigree-registerable foals forward for inspection, telling them that it will be ‘too difficult to identify your ponies’ and that ‘there is no market for them’.
‘This happened with James Bryant’s Herd 423 youngstock at Countisbury,’ said Dawn, who has documented the story in her book, Wild Herd Whispering. ‘ As a result, he had already culled his 2 year old colts who were still waiting for an inspection, when we stepped in to help. Working with James we went through his herd, made a list of all mares, matched them with their foals, had the vet microchip foals, then had all this information to hand at the EPS inspection. All foals passed inspection and we insisted that they were issued with Equine-ID passports so they could be sold off the farm. We promoted the foals and secured buyers for all of them. Eventually, parentage was confirmed and pedigree passports were issued for all of them. They had not been difficult to identify and there was a market for them, despite what the herd owner was told. Putting farmers under pressure to cull foals like that is wrong
.
There is an alarming decline in the number of pedigree filly foal registrations, with under sixty registered worldwide so far last year. That is barely enough to replace older mares and maintain overall breed numbers - and it is half the number routinely registered a few years ago.
Questions now need to be asked how and why the society may be benefitting from registering less ponies.’
So what’s the solution?
‘Perhaps DEFRA needs to take over registrations, or provide alternative registration, for Exmoor ponies,
’ said Dawn Westcott. ‘DNA parentage testing needs to be suspended as a registration requirement, while the EPS gets its database and service up to standard. And the much-needed supplement and upgrading system for excluded purebreds must be established. The low market value of Exmoor ponies requires fast, low-cost, straightforward registration and passporting to give semi-feral foals the best chance to find opportunities off the moor - and safeguard the future of the moorland breed.’ said Dawn Westcott.
‘With the younger generation of moorland farmers saying that if things don’t vastly improve, they’ll replace ponies with cattle and sheep, there is no doubt that some important free-living herds are in serious jeopardy - and some are gone already. The EPS needs to pull its socks up fast, or alternative registration for Exmoor ponies is needed. Because once the moorland ponies are gone, they will be gone. They’ve survived as Britain’s oldest native hill pony breed for thousands of years - let’s hope it’s not red tape and intransigence that eradicates the ponies of Exmoor
.’
More information at www.mepbg.co.uk
and www.exmoorponyproject.co.uk.
Some recent TV and press coverage of the Exmoor pony registration issues:
YouTube Clip of Sky News report:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16sVxt_vn3E&t=7s
Sky News Sun 25 Feb - Rebecca Williams written report:
https://news.sky.com/story/farmers-forced-to-cull-endangered-ponies-over-passport-delay-11266631
BBC Points West News:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otxdmJerH1U
ITV West Country News:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q30abIACryg
BBC Somerset Radio - discussion throughout the Claire Carter show 15 Feb 2018:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05w6cww#play
Daily Express 19 Feb 2018:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/920694/Exmoor-ponies-endangered-put-dow-red-tape-fiasco-passports
Horse & Hound 1 March issue:
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/horse-hound/20180301/282969630561342
Somerset County Gazette:
http://www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/16014530.Fears_rare_Exmoor_Ponies_could_be_culled_becaus...
This article appears in the March 2018 issue of the Minehead & Exmoor Chronicle, which can be viewed here
https://issuu.com/mineheadexmoorchronicle/docs/minehead-and-exmoor-chronicle-march
Update 4 May 2018:
The Exmoor pony breed is now sadly listed as 'IN DECLINE' on the Rare Breed Survival Trust's 2018 Danger List - and pedigree registrations of female Exmoor pony foals is in freefall, with under last year compared to recent trends.
On 2 May, at the Exmoor Pony Society AGM, EPS members (encouraged by various trustees) voted to continue discrimination against the ponies and obstruct their rightful registration in the Exmoor Pony Stud Book - by refusing to amend Rule 8 to allow re-inspection of all Exmoor ponies that were failed for any reason/element that has been subsequently removed as a reason for failure at inspection. For example, as the EPS no longer lifts the feet of foals, they are no longer failed for colour of undersole. Ponies previously inspected once and failed for that reason are being reinspected and upgraded to pedigree status. Ponies previously seen twice and failed for that reason are being refused a re-inspection and obstructed from being upgraded. This has created discrimination within the breed. The resolution to amend Rule 8 should have been a straightforward vote to set matters right and yet, it was not. We are waiting to hear how the EPS Chairman voted, who was designated to vote on behalf of members voting by proxy. Surely, the EPS Chairman would not vote to continue discrimination which obstructs the rightful registration of Exmoor ponies?
