Exmoor Ponies in Conservation

Annual Report
1999-2000

EPIC received its first transfusion of funding in November 1999, having run for six years on a wing, a prayer and a personal overdraft. This report will outline what EPIC has been able to achieve during its first year of relative solvency.

There was considerable media interest in EPIC's activities toward the end of 1999 and articles appeared in the following publications :-

• Country Living Magazine September 1999
• Sunday Telegraph 3 October 1999
• The Times Educational Supplement November 26 1999
• Lancashire Life Magazine December 1999
• BBC Vegetarian / Good Food Magazine, January 2000.

EPIC was featured on BBC1's Countryfile programme on 12 September 1999 and BBC1's Breakfast News followed this up with an additional report which was broadcast on the BBC1 morning and evening news on 26 October. A similar report also appeared on CBBC1's Newsround that same evening. On 5 November, an article was published on the BBC on-line news website giving further information about EPIC's work for biodiversity.

Financial support from the Elise Pilkington Trust Fund has enabled EPIC to continue to work toward the development of equine welfare standards appropriate to conservation grazing projects. You will be aware that currently there are no national equine conservation grazing welfare guidelines of any kind from MAFF, NFU, BHS or any other welfare organisation. The International League for the Protection of Horses has recently approved EPIC's Code of Practice and it is currently being considered for ratification by the National Equine Welfare Council and local government 'Trading Standards' in its new role with respect to the welfare of grazing animals.

EPIC is working with IDEA - Innovations in Digital and Electronic Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University, to produce a compact disc with advice and guidance for equine conservation graziers which is accessible on a standard PC, a draft copy of which is appended to this report.

EPIC continues to manage equine grazing projects in north Lancashire for English Nature, the National Trust and Lancashire Wildlife Trust. A member of the Morecambe Bay Regional Grazing Pilot Project, EPIC celebrates its seventh year of conservation grazing on the Gait Barrows National Nature Reserve for English Nature. An additional 20 acres, hitherto over-grazed by sheep, has shown an improvement in biodiversity after only twelve months of Exmoor grazing. EPIC has established another conservation grazing project on an overgrown but nationally significant EN fen meadow near Carnforth with every indication of similar improvements.

Co-operation with the National Trust on a number of marginal but species rich sites has enabled EPIC and the ponies to make a significant local impact. Duke of Burgundy Fritillary and High Brown Fritillary butterflies and Minotaur beetles have been amongst the species benefiting from the pony's talent for selective grazing.

EPIC helped the warden of Finglandrigg Wood Nature Reserve near Carlisle to acquire a group of Exmoors from a local breeder. These ponies are now grazing this wetland site successfully. It is hoped that there will be an improvement in the numbers of Marsh Fritillaries on the Reserve. (There is an article about this project in Epicentre 3 on-line at

The Daily Telegraph -

At the request of the English Nature Humber to Pennine team, EPIC collected two Exmoor ponies from Peebles, north of Edinburgh, and delivered them to Manton and Twigmoor, a rare coversand site just outside Scunthorpe. There they are managed for conservation grazing by a local vet who has considerable Exmoor pony experience.

(reported in the Weekend Telegraph

In July EPIC organised and presented its first a two-day residential workshop in 'Pony Handling for Conservation Grazing'. The delegates included staff and volunteers from more than a dozen conservation organisations from throughout England. The course was well received and EPIC is in negotiation with Dorset Wildlife Trust and Pembrokeshire Coastal Park to provide further pony management training for their staff.

It is EPIC's aim that all equine conservation schemes will have access to local equine-experienced volunteers who have been trained to assist site managers in the welfare requirements of a pony workforce. Those volunteers who attended the EPIC course in July have returned to their grazing schemes with more confidence to be able to help wardens ensure that equine welfare on the site complies with national standards, as they develop. (Field Officers from the ILPH have agreed to offer welfare advice to equine conservation grazing schemes and volunteers.)

EPIC has managed to secure sponsorship from two respected companies in the equine industry. Day Son and Hewitt, manufacturers and suppliers of high quality equine health products, have already been generous enough to supply an equine welfare starter pack to all new equine conservation grazing schemes. Dodson and Horrell, manufacturers and suppliers of equine feedstuffs, have recently made EPIC a similar offer. They have, in addition, generously offered access to their laboratories to support equine conservation grazing research projects. (EPIC has also been successful in obtaining a mobile field shelter from English Nature's Species Recovery Grant Scheme.)

EPIC began the year with a healthy herd of seventeen conservation grazing native ponies, all working for biodiversity on up to seven or eight sensitive conservation sites in and around Silverdale.

Twelve months later, EPIC ponies form an important part of the grazing regime on the Gait Barrows National Nature Reserve, and EPIC is now able to provide a flying 'hit-squad' of equine conservation grazers for use anywhere in the country. With EPIC's support, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust is now in the vanguard of Exmoor grazing projects with four large sites and the desire to acquire its own herd of ponies. EPIC is responsible for other new projects which have started in Cumbria, Humberside and North Lincolnshire and increasing numbers of existing projects have approached EPIC for help, advice and ponies. EPIC's welfare Code of Practice is gradually being adopted as the minimum standard for equine welfare for conservation grazing and is working its way toward ratification by national welfare and equine organisations.

EPIC is in the process of building a support network for equine conservation grazing, having established the basis of a national network of equine conservation grazing practitioners. The website and the on-line newsletter, sponsorship from the equine industry and developing links with educational and research institutions make EPIC well placed to ensure that no equine conservation grazing project will fail for the want of support, advice and guidance. EPIC, working with RuralNet, is developing a national teleconference, the better to share the accumulating first hand experience of equine conservation grazing management and thereby, offer an emergency 'on-line-hot-line' with access to all participating graziers.

EPIC is establishing links with equine rescue organisations with the view to provide a secure future in conservation grazing for suitable hardy native ponies. Indeed, EPIC has just negotiated the transfer of three rescued Exmoor ponies from the Society for the Welfare of Horses and Ponies in Monmouth to Yorkshire Wildlife Trust for employment on Skipwith Common.

Britain, like many other EU countries, is failing to meet its biodiversity targets and farmers are increasingly unable to help. Public interest in Agenda 21 and Natura 2000 is at an all time high and there is no shortage of volunteers willing to help conservation professionals manage the ponies that manage the sites. Native ponies are the sustainable solution for the special sites left un-grazed as agriculture re-organises. Native ponies are readily available from interested breed societies and rescue organisations and groups like EPIC will be able to transform these previously unwanted and even, endangered animals into effective, productive and above all, sustainable solutions to our disappearing species and habitats.