Safari Journal - April 2024
For the Love of Wild Horses
Carneddau Ponies
Snowdonia, Wales
The hardy survivors found in the Carneddau are the closest to truly wild ponies as Britain gets. But each winter, the farmers who manage the land they roam still gather them in for an annual check-in. Thousands of these wild ponies once roamed the mountains of Snowdonia, but only about 220 remain.
Welsh Carneddau mountain ponies.
Welsh Carneddau mountain ponies live in herds including about 15 mares and one stallion. The exact number of ponies in a herd reflects the size of the area it occupies and the strength of its stallion. The toughest and most resilient groups of ponies occupy higher altitudes, where winter temperatures can plunge to well below freezing. Each herd has a matriarch that is believed to be more influential than the group’s stallion. - Photography by MARY MCCARTNEY for National Geographic
Mustangs
Montana, Utah, South Dakota, Wyoming, Arizona
Mustang horses are descendants of escaped, domestic Spanish horses that were brought to the Americas by Spanish explorers in the 16th century. The name is derived from the Spanish words "mestengo" and "mostrenco" — meaning "wild or masterless cattle," according to the Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries.
Mustangs are not technically wild horses because they came from a domesticated population, and so the mustangs living in the wild are considered feral, according to the American Museum of Natural History.
Wild Horses in Action - video by Karen King
Photo by @benhortonphoto
The takhi is the only true wild horse left in the world. The so-called “wild” horses that abound in Australia and North America are actually feral. A domestic animal becomes "feral" simply by fending for itself when left in the wild. If it finds others of its own species, reproduces, and the offspring also fend for themselves in the wild, the result is a feral population.
Operation Wild Horse
As open space is becoming smaller due to private ownership, wild horses require some oversight in order to keep the population to a manageable size.
Horses of Monument Valley - Arizona
Article: When Is "Wild" Actually "Feral"?
The Pleistocene horse genome Orlando and colleagues pieced together helped them determine that the ancestor to the Equus lineage—the group that gave rise to modern horses, zebras, and donkeys—arose 4 to 4.5 million years ago, or about two million years earlier than previously thought.
World's Oldest Genome Sequenced From Horse DNA
A 700,000-year-old horse leg bone has yielded the world's oldest complete genome.
BY JANE J. LEE
DNA shines a light back into the past, showing us things that fossils can't. But how far back can that light extend?
Some of the oldest DNA sequences come from mastodon and polar bear fossils about 50,000 and 110,000 years old, respectively. But a study published in the journal Nature reports the latest in the push for recovering ever more ancient DNA sequences. Samples from a horse leg bone more than 700,000 years old have yielded the oldest full genome known to date.
"We knew that sequencing ancient genomes as old as 70,000 to 80,000 years old was possible," said Ludovic Orlando, an evolutionary geneticist with the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen. "So we said, why not try even further back in time?"
WATCH THE LAST TRUE WILD HORSES ON EARTH: THE PRZEWALSKI'S HORSES
Gamkaberg Nature Reserve, South Africa
Cape Mountain Zebra
The Cape Mountain Zebra is one of South Africa’s most remarkable conservation stories. This beautiful animal was once abundant throughout the Eastern and Western Cape but declined drastically due to hunting and loss of habitat. The species faced extinction as numbers declined drastically to less than 60 individuals at the beginning of the 20th century.
However, due to conservation efforts, an estimated 4,872 zebras in 76 sub-populations throughout South Africa was recorded in 2015. Their population grows an estimated 9% each year.
Despite the population growth, the Cape Mountain Zebra is still currently listed as vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (ICUN). A lack of genetic diversity currently threatens the long-term survival of the species.
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Botswana Predator Conservation Trust
For over two decades, the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust has been working to study and preserve wildlife in Africa.
Tusk's approach to conservation recognizes that the long term future for wildlife and Africa's other natural resources is dependent on sustainable rural development. more... Tusk believes that if conservation is to succeed and environmental degradation to be reversed then education needs to be promoted at an early age.
Cheetah Conservation Botswana (CCB) aims to preserve the nation’s cheetah population through scientific research, community outreach and conservation education, working with rural communities to promote coexistence with Botswana’s rich diversity of carnivore species.