Wild horses and cattle find there way back to European nature

Written by Andrejs Vizulis

Sunday, 24 April 2011 14:57

Large grazers like auroch, wisent and somewhat less the tarpan where an important part of European fauna in prehistoric times, until agriculture became common in Europe. In the Baltic’s wisent and tarpan still survived the medieval, the auroch dies out in this region around 1500, the tarpan around 1700 and the wisent around 1750. The wisent survives in European zoo’s, but both the auroch and tarpan, the wild European caw and horse have become extinct; only their domesticated offspring have survived in all kinds of forms and breeds. About bovids it is known that the auroch was very different from the domesticated bovines. Archaeological findings prove that the auroch could easily be distinguished from domestic cattle. This is unlike the horse: archaeologists are often not able to make this differentiation when horse bones are excavated. Some domesticated horses are still very close to the extinct wild horse, the tarpan.

Most modern cattle and horse breeds have lost the ability to survive on their own in the wild. They cannot tolerate cold, they can no longer digest the withered grass in winter, or produce young without external assistance; milk production is to high, and so on. Jet one can find a large number of old regional horse breeds and still some cattle breeds that still have the ability to survive in complete natural circumstances. Compared with the cow, the horse has gone through 2000 years less domestication, which makes them closer to nature. Experience also learns that horses have relatively les problems than cattle surviving under natural circumstances.

Dedomestication process

The bovids and horses that take the place of their ancestors in a nature reserve must undergo a process of dedomestication in which, by natural selection gradually, both the physical and social skills are developed to a suitable level for survival under natural conditions.

The wild horse and the auroch live on in the genes of their domestic offspring. Many types of regional breeds have developed through the ages. As the selection was made at the regional level, some particular qualities in a regional type will have been lost, whereas other qualities will have been emphasised. In order to maintain the greatest diversity in bovine and horse qualities, it would be advisable to subject many primitive and regional breeds to a dedomestication process. Only then will the entire richness of both old and new-required qualities of the species become manifest. The condition of the terrain and the climate may have furnished new adaptations in the course of the thousands of years of domestication, which will be valuable for dedomestication in similar circumstances. A mountain cow will have other qualities than a cow that can endure the extreme heat in the southern plains. Local breeds are often also adapted to the parasites that turn up in their environment.

It is therefore unwise to select only one or a few breeds and use them all over Europe for the process of dedomestication. Hence, the genetic richness stored in the different local cultured breeds must be utilised as much as possible.

Horses back in the wilde

A horse breed that we mostly use for re-introduction in nature is the konik polski (literally: the small Polish horse). This breed was mainly selected because of its very close relationship to the extinct European wild horse: the tarpan. The last tarpan died in 1887, in the Moscow zoo. One centurie earlier, around 1770, the last wild tarpans of southeast Poland were caught and kept in a zoo, and in 1808 they were divided among farmers. All kinds of characteristics of domesticated animals were crossed in, but in 1936 the Polish professor Vetulani was still able to trace some twenty horses among their descendants that looked very similar to tarpans. He started a special breeding programme, which has continued to the present day. Stichting Ark is one of the participants.

Yet, if locally a suitable horse breed is available, it is wise to use this instead, this to safeguard the genetic diversity in horses. Europe still has maney hardened horse and pony breeds with which the process of dedomestication can be started. On an Ark project site in the Bulgarian eastern Rhodopia we are using a local breed instead! Other suitable horse varieties include the Exmoor, the new generation of Dartmoor, the Portuguese Sorraia , the fjord pony, and the Icelandic horse.

Typical tarpan characteristics of the Konik are, among other things, the dun-coloured coat, the narrow black stripe on its back, tail and manes, and the zebra-like markings on the dark legs.

The Konik has proven to be a very suitable horse for live under natural conditions, and is used for natural grazing in many nature areas. There are some 5000 koniks living in the world today some 2000 of those live in nature areas in the Netherlands and Belgium and some 1500 live in Poland.

In 1999 the first wild konik horses set foot on Latvian soil! On the invitation of Pasaules Dabas fonds (PDF) Ark transported 18 Koniks to the shores of lake Pape in the south/west of Kurzeme. In the years after many other herds of wild koniks from the Netherlands are transported to nature areas all over Latvia. On January 2011there are 447 koniks living in Latvian nature.

Social behaviour

A population of horses consists of a number of groups with different compositions and behaviour. The general impression is that horses have a great number of variations in their social behaviour, depending on the circumstances. In general one can distinguish 3 tipes of cocial groups in a natural horse population.

The harem group

The harem group generally consists of one older stallion (often 5 years old or more) and a number of mares, one of which is the leader of the group. There is sometimes a second subordinate stallion ('secondant') and in large areas with big herds (500>) there are even combined harems with several stallions each of which has its own mares. The group stays together for a long time. Now and then, a young mare is added to the group. The young animals, stallions and mares born in the group, are often cast out when they reach sexual maturity. This greatly reduces the chance of inbreeding. Harem groups live in overlapping home ranges, which are more or less stable. Several harems may stay together; this may look like one large herd, but it is in fact a group of separate harems.

The adolescent group

Ousted animals from different herds may look out for each other and form temporary adolescent groups. These groups are unstable and the animals are vulnerable to predators. Young mares sometimes have one or two foals before being included in a stable harem group. The young stallions may affiliate themselves to a stallion group, but may also become 'secondants' in a harem group.

The stallion group

Stallions that have no harem of their own will join together to form a stallion group. These are lively groups of animals where mainly young stallions (2 - 4 years old) can acquire experience for their future role as the leading stallion, although many of them are never to reach that stage. Experienced stallions may take over the lead of a harem group, or form a new one. The stallion groups in large herds (500>) do not have a fixed composition; they may change daily. They often hang around the periphery of harem groups. Older stallions may also live as solitary bachelors and try to cover mares from harems. Fights amongst stallions generally take place in spring when the mares are in season. Wounds from biting and kicking as a result of display of masculine power occur often but are rarely grave and heal quickly.