Rewilding
June 2, 2021
How do we keep Rewilding philosophy & practice on track to safeguard animal welfare as well as the planet!
If REWILDING turns its back on good husbandry and stockmanship, it is taking a dangerous turn for animal welfare.
Animals like Exmoor ponies
are semi-feral,
not wild. There is a duty of care for their owners to provide appropriate all-year-round sustainable grazing that helps them maintain acceptable condition and avoids them being forced to eat unsuitable and toxic vegetation, in desperation. If the ponies are untamed and unhandled, they should be running in suitable terrain/environment where they can self trim their hooves. There should also be a fast action plan in place for the herd owner to deal with injury/disease/difficulties.
Good livestock pen panel and shute systems are used very successfully by semi-feral herd owners in Exmoor National Park and elsewhere, which enable the humane gathering and close inspection of ponies, when necessary.
Rewilding still forces animals to live inside fenced enclosures. They cannot migrate if food runs out. This is not 'wild' - the animals are dependent on their human owners to manage that enclosure in a suitable way to provide sufficient food and to maintain the health and wellbeing of the herd.
I hope 'rewilding' projects do not take a dangerous direction where their managers think it is OK to buy in animals and then leave them to 'live or die' without due care and responsibility to those animals. Watching them suffer with a curious detachment that this is 'all in the name of rewilding'. Let's be clear - it is not OK to let animals starve and suffer in the name of 'rewilding'. When it comes to animal management, good stockmanship is essential - it is the right of animals to expect that.
I hope that we are not starting to see an alarming 'disconnect' and lack of empathy and responsibility between rewilding managers and the animals they buy into their projects. If so, this would represent a serious decline in animal welfare standards, if not blatant animal abuse - and it should be strongly challenged.
The hardy, robust British native breeds, like Exmoor ponies and Galloway cattle, are particularly attractive to rewilding projects -with their ancient genetic and learned behaviours and characteristics of extensively grazing, free-living animals. These attributes and qualities should be valued and respected - not abused.
Rewilding projects have the potential to create some excellent environments and habitats, for both flora and fauna - but they MUST be managed with due care, attention and responsibility to the animals within them, maintaining acceptable animal welfare standards and not being allowed to cause unnecessary suffering.
The apparent terrible condition and treatment of Exmoor ponies in Denmark is very sad to see. They are one of Great Britain's oldest native pony breeds and they are an endangered breed. They deserve better. So do the Galloway cattle and all the other animals.
I very much hope that the law in Denmark is not changed to make it worse for these poor animals, which are still 'farmed animals' living inside a fenced enclosure.
With the right management and regulation, there is no reason why these rewilding projects can't become shining examples of good stockmanship, while fulfilling their 'rewilding' goals for the environment. It's not rocket science, mostly we're talking about giving the animals some much needed forage, at times when their environment can't provide that!
Dawn Westcott
Exmoor Pony Project and Moorland Exmoor Breeders Group
NB A Facebook group of over 7,000 members is debating the animal welfare situation, involving Exmoor ponies, in Denmark https://www.facebook.com/groups/375685486805881/
Pictured:
Exmoor ponies from the largest herd of semi-feral Exmoor ponies in the UK, photographed in March this year by Sarah Hailstone, coming out of winter in good shape, in one of the wildest and toughest moorland areas of Exmoor - Brendon Common.
#denmark #rewilding #rewildingeurope #nationalparks #ExmoorPonies #nature #conservation #animalwelfare #rewild #naturelovers #Folketing Mette Frederiksen #gonative #nativebreeds
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