‘Going extinct’
treated and therefore they die.”
AFP journalists were given access last month to the newest stables built in 2006 on the largest of the islands, Buyukada, where horses were standing in their own manure and only makeshift panels separated their stalls. Near the stables, horse bones could be seen scattered on the ground.
“The stables are disastrous, full of dirt and trash,” Erturk said. pictures,” said Erturk. “Last year, 200 horses were brought to the island. Nobody heeds the ban.”
Around 1,000 horses are officially registered on the four main islands but the activists say another 1,000 have been kept illegally.
Sultan Gulyar, of the Turkish Society for the Protection of Animals, said horses were mostly smuggled in during the busy summer season.
Horse drivers refute that animals are kept in squalid conditions.
"We have stable hands and we take good care of our horses," Osman Fidan, a carriage driver for 35 years, said.
But newly elected mayor of the islands, Erdem Gul, whose opposition CHP party has long governed there, has acknowledged that the current system needed to change.
“We cannot meet the animal lovers’ demands, we cannot protect horses’ rights, we cannot provide adequate veterinary services, our horse drivers are not compatible with the modern world,” he told AFP last month.
“If we cannot take good care of animals, this is cruelty.”
Gul said he was working on a plan to sharply reduce the number of horses to just a few for nostalgic purposes but with improved living standards, and introduce instead electric vehicles.
“The current system is not working, it is heading for extinction,” he said.
Carriage drivers are angry and worried about their future.
“It is easy to say ‘Let’s remove the system’, but what will happen to the 1,500 people who earn their living from this?” said Hidir Unal, who chairs a group representing the island horse drivers.
Hasan Cetek (59), who has been doing the job since he was a teenager, defended his trade: “Who will look after those horses? If this is gone, they will all be sausages.”
Gul said before the ban was announced that the municipality would ensure a formula was found to compensate them.
A 90-minute boat trip from central Istanbul, the islands - nine in total but only four served by ferry - offer a scenic escape from the hectic city and its traffic. A carriage ride for up to four people - taking in 12km of Buyukada - cost 180 lira (US$31 approx) and was popular with tourists.
Fidan, the carriage driver, said it was vital to life on the petrolfree islands. “Many are coming to ride the carriages,” he said. “If horse-pulled carriages are removed, this island will be dead.”