Sugar proves taxing for the wild ponies
Treats from visitors may be making the normally gentle beasts of the Quantocks aggressive
Ponies fed picnic leftovers and sweets by well-meaning visitors in the Quantock Hills, Somerset, are resorting to violence to satisfy their sugary urges. Campaigners claim the animals have become so brazen in their attempts to separate walkers from their sweets that they have bitten and butted them, even breaking one woman’s leg. Some have been spotted getting aggressive with each other as they battle over left-behind biscuits.
IT IS a scene as synonymous with Somerset’s Quantock Hills as heather and red deer – wild ponies grazing placidly in combes as hikers clad in neon waterproofs clomp merrily by.
Now, thanks to the same issue that has had everyone from supermarket shoppers to MPs and celebrity chefs up in arms, all that has changed.
Warnings have been issued after sweet-toothed Quantock ponies raised on leftover picnics and Polos from well-meaning visitors resorted to violence to satisfy their sugary urges.
Campaigners in Bridgwater claim the beasts have become so brazen in their attempts to separate walkers from their sweets that they have bitten and butted them, even breaking one woman’s leg and damaging cars.
Some have been spotted getting unusually aggressive with each other as they battle over biscuits, chocolate and other treats left behind by tourists.
The Quantock Pony Commoners Association said: “Feeding the ponies is dangerous. By feeding the Quantock ponies you are changing their behaviour and encouraging them to become aggressive. There have been recent cases of a pony breaking someone’s leg, biting and causing vehicle damage.”
It urged visitors: “Do not add to the problem. For your own safety, please stay well clear of the ponies and never feed them.”
Ponies have grazed in the area for more than 60 years, with around 30 on Quantock Common and another 20 on nearby Aisholt Common. The normally gentle animals, which are wild and were hitherto unused to regular human contact, are rounded up once a year to be checked, treated and bred.
Feeding the ponies is a tradition in the hills, which are popular with holidaymakers and local people.
But now it is feared they have become a menace to the public after a rise in the number of incidents in which people were “hustled” or attacked by the stocky creatures, a spokesman for the pony association said.
Some have been known to approach parked cars, pushing their heads inside in search of a sugar fix as they roam unchecked across the picturesque landscape. Signs have been put up in the area to deter passers-by from feeding the animals’ growing addiction, amid fears that the ponies’ newfound taste could be harming their long-term health.
Richard Waterman, one of 11 pony breeders in the area, said: “It’s nice for people to come up and take a picnic – we don’t want them to stop doing that, but they must not leave food around and they definitely must not feed them by hand.
“Just the fact of leaving the food around draws the ponies back into this area, where there is a road across the hill, and that in itself causes a problem with vehicles driving and incidents where you get the odd pony run over.”
It is not known whether the ponies are craving sugar in particular, but animals such as rats have long been used in studies aimed at understanding the mechanisms of addiction.
Other wild animals such as stags have been known to attack humans, although incidents are rare in the UK.