The future of Dartmoor National Park’s wild pony population has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, with regulators, conservationists, politicians and campaigners all debating the rights and wrongs of a potential pony cull.
The origins of the debate seem to lie in a view expressed by Natural England (NE - the UK government’s environmental advisory body) that Dartmoor is being over-grazed and, as a result, biodiversity is being harmed.
The proposed solution is that landowners should reduce animal stocking densities by around 75% in order for them to be able to continue to qualify for the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) and its funding.
@feddit
What’s The Isle of Man got to do with Dartmoor?
Dartmoor is mainland Southern England.
The Isle of Man (not even mentioned anywhere in text) is an island in the Irish Sea, between North West England & Ireland.From the article:
Closer to home, whilst the Isle of Man does have a small number of feral ponies located in the north east, it’s the wallaby and feral goat populations that cause debate between conservationists, ecologists, animal welfare campaigners and landowners.
They differ from the Dartmoor ponies in that they are classed as non-indigenous, but calls for a cull of both species are constant and can be undertaken entirely legally by anyone with a licensed shot-gun.
It seems that public opinion will be what saves the Dartmoor pony – let’s hope it does the same for wallabies and feral goats, and that they are afforded suitable legal protection.
It’s a bit tenuous, I agree, but it is an opinion piece, and people from the Isle of Man are allowed to have opinions on things elsewhere.
@GreyShuck
IguessI neeed the subscription to read that as I didn’t see it.Ahh - didn’t realise that this was a subscription site. I have the bypass-paywalls addin. That is one of the downsides.
