Orig­i­nal­ly, in addi­tion to roe deer and wild boar, there were also elk, red deer, beaver, bison, aurochs and wild hors­es here on the Oder, as in large parts of Europe. You once helped to shape the land­scapes that we know today only in human form. With the year-round graz­ing by a small num­ber of large her­bi­vores, an attempt is made to come clos­er to the orig­i­nal land­scape char­ac­ter. Nature should be able to devel­op here as freely as pos­si­ble with­out requir­ing a result that has been planned in advance, an ide­al addi­tion to process pro­tec­tion in the nation­al park. Year-round graz­ing also makes sense from an eco­nom­ic point of view.

Konik

Up to the end of the 18th cen­tu­ry there were also wild hors­es in Cen­tral Europe, the Tarpans. Today it can no longer be clar­i­fied whether tarpans were real wild ani­mals or — sim­i­lar to the mus­tangs in Amer­i­ca — go back to fer­al ear­ly domes­tic ani­mals. Around 1780 the last tarpans had been caught near Bialowieza and brought to a wildlife park. In 1806 these ani­mals were dis­trib­uted to local farm­ers. They mixed there with oth­er domes­tic hors­es. In 1936, Tadeusz Vetu­lani select­ed ani­mals from the descen­dants of these ani­mals in order to breed hors­es that should come as close as pos­si­ble to the Tarpan. The Konik (Pol­ish: lit­tle horse) was created.

Around the same time, the Heck broth­ers in Ger­many began to breed a horse that was to resem­ble the Tarpan by cross­ing Dül­men, Got­land and Ice­landic ponies, Prze­wal­s­ki hors­es and Koniks. Since both breed­ing lines have often been crossed with each oth­er in the mean­time, they can hard­ly be dis­tin­guished today. Com­mon fea­tures of today’s hors­es, which are sim­i­lar to their wild rel­a­tives, are the gray-yel­low coat col­or and the dark eel line on the back. Often there are also zebra cross­ings on the legs. Be on the pas­ture in the dry pold­er between Lunow and Stolzen­hagen Aurochs (Heck cat­tle) and tarpans (Koniks) kept togeth­er. They per­form var­i­ous tasks in the pas­ture ecosys­tem. They both eat dif­fer­ent­ly and dif­fer­ent­ly. Hors­es, for exam­ple, can bite off the stalks just above the ground, while cat­tle tear off their food with their tongues. Hors­es and cat­tle there­fore have dif­fer­ent effects on the veg­e­ta­tion. This cre­ates a rich mosa­ic of dif­fer­ent plant communities.

Exmoor pony

The appear­ance of the Exmoor ponies is still very rem­i­nis­cent of the extinct or extinct west­ern wild horse, Tarpan called. It is con­sid­ered to be the most pris­tine and wild horse-like small horse in the British Isles. Some herds still roam freely in the moors of south west Eng­land. That’s why we brought them to the low­er Oder val­ley, which is strong­ly char­ac­ter­ized by low moor loca­tions. Exmoor ponies are not kept free in the low­er Oder val­ley, nor are they kept in their own herds, but rather social­ized with the back­bred ones Aurochs , the so-called Heck cat­tle, not least because of their dif­fer­ent eat­ing behav­ior com­pared to the cat­tle-like cat­tle. Togeth­er hors­es and cat­tle graze the wild pas­tures bet­ter and more sus­tain­ably than in sep­a­rate herds. In fact, hors­es and cat­tle avoid each oth­er in the wide pas­tures and form their own sep­a­rate groups. The stur­dy Exmoor ponies are also hardy, sum­mer and win­ter on the pas­ture, where they give birth to their foals and are pro­tect­ed by thick win­ter fur. Like the “aurochs”, the Exmoor ponies are also fed in win­ter with hay adver­tised on our own land. The off­spring can cer­tain­ly be sold on the horse mar­ket. How­ev­er, eco­nom­ic aspects are not deci­sive for keep­ing the Exmoor ponies.

Map of the wild horse pastures