Nature notes
The wild Carneddau ponies
Asmile always lights up my face when I encounter seemingly wild ponies high up in the hills. Theirs is a hard life, but it’s not as wild as you’d expect... In fact, there are no truly ‘wild’ ponies or horses in Britain – any pony you see in our upland areas belongs to someone. A farmer will know pretty accurately at any given time of year where their ponies will be. The Carneddau mountains in Snowdonia are a great place to look for them, and these ponies have been separated from the ‘run of the mill’ Welsh mountain ponies for long enough to be classed as an individual breed. The genetics are complicated, but they reach back to prehistoric native ponies and even have a more recent Arabic influence. This is what gives them their pretty faces. If you’re lucky enough to see some, it’s the long, unkempt, flowing manes that set them apart from domesticated horses and ponies. They look like they’re an ancient band of warriors who’ve lived their whole lives in the hills, which they pretty much do. I think we’d look similar if left to go feral in the hills, gathered in once a year to have our teeth looked at and our tails clipped.
The ponies in the Welsh mountains range in size and colour. I’ve seen the occasional one with blue eyes, a direct link to their ancient relatives. Some are grey, others dark brown and every shade in-between. The rough grass they spend their lives knee-deep in is texturally and tonally similar to their coarse, flowing manes and coats. A winter coat is grown in September and shed by May.
Herd structure isn’t totally as it would be in the wild. In a natural setting, a stallion over five years old would be dominant over a group of mares. To control the numbers of ponies out in the mountains, stallion numbers are limited. They are even sometimes brought in off the hill after servicing the required number of mares. When no stallion is present, a dominant mare will take charge of the herd, which is often split into several small groups. In a community communication is vital and snorts and squeals are aggressive, while a ‘whicker’ is a low-pitched call between mare and foal, and a ‘whinny’ a louder, higherpitched call used when a pony is separated from the rest of the herd. The herd structure is also kept in place with physical actions – the laying back of the ears, biting, and kicking with one or both of the hind legs.
The herd has daily patterns of movement, as well as seasonal. A mare when about to give birth, from May through late July, will head off on her own to seek out the cover of tall bracken to birth, rejoining the gang only when the foal is strong enough. Interestingly, if eaten in anything other than very small quantities bracken can prove fatal to ponies.
The emergence of young spring grasses at the edges of mountain bogs can also prove a step too far for some unlucky ponies, as getting out of a bog can be almost impossible. They’re not immune to severe weather either. In the spring of 2013 many of the Carneddau ponies died in late severe snowstorms. Nature, being what she is, soon made up the losses.
But why are they there? The areas of the mountains they roam are common grazing lands. Having the ponies in the hills allows for a much more natural form of grazing, helping to sustain plant and animal life. In fact, during the annual round-up, many are sold, so as to maintain a viable, but not overly intense population (around 400 in the Carneddau). Some of those sold end up grazing nature reserves all over Britain.
Next time you see these ‘lost in time warriors of the hills’, spare a thought for the life they lead, then think about them again a day, week, month and year later, still there, surviving in the teeth of everything the mountains can throw at them.
THE GENETICS REACH BACK TO PREHISTORIC NATIVE PONIES AND EVEN HAVE A MORE RECENT ARABIC INFLUENCE