Feral ponies

[simato73]

Living year-round on the Carneddau at the northern edge of Snodownia National Park, Wales.
I had read about them years ago, but never  had a close encounter before.
As far as I know they live in a semi-wild state.
They are rounded yearly for counting and checking; DNA studies show that their gene pool has remained isolated for at least two centuries.
In 2013 their population took a heavy hit due to heavy snow in the spring.

[Jakov Minić]

Beautiful creatures!
Simone you always present us with crisp and lovely images
Thanks!

[elsa hoffmann]

cool images - nice done. They seem to be rather round which means food is plentiful?
We also have a group of true wild horses near Cape Town - but they are too habituated so no one can tell unless they know they are "wild"

[BW]

Nice creatures! They are not easy to approach being as timid and shy as any wild animal. The management of wild horses can be tricky and a lot of feelings involved. Just look at the management of wild mustangs in the US of A. Never knew there were any in Wales. Thanks for sharing!

[simato73]

Thanks all for your comments.

Elsa I think the shape is due more to the breed than the abundance of food, but I am no horse expert.

Thanks Jakov, always a pleasure to read your kind words

Børge, these animals are quite habituated to humans. Even an area as unihabited as the Carneddau sees relatively many people compared to real wilderness in America or Northern Europe.
These animals were domesticated for centuries and only relatively recently the went "wild", and still had plenty of contact with humans tendong to them in some way. So they are not as skittish as normal wildlife. I have not tried to get very close to them though; besides they had a young foal and I did not want to trigger some defense response.