It looks like a scene you'd expect in America's Wild West.
But these amazing photos of two wild stallions sparring was taken in the serene, green English countryside, just outside Cambridge.
The two stallions are part of a 50-strong herd of Koniks brought over from Holland and which now inhabit Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.
The Koniks are close relatives of the breeds which roamed Bronze Age Europe.
Wild horse became extinct in Britain 4000 years ago, but survived in parts of Continental Europe until the late 1800s.
Being an island, once animals disappear from Britain they tend to stay gone. Of 724 known animal extinctions in the last 400 years, about half were of island species, and of the bird species that have become extinct in that period, at least 90 percent were island dwellers.
Konik means "little horse" in Polish. The koniks help to keep the land open by grazing on weeds and reeds, giving plants, birds and insects the chance to settle.
Wicken Fen is a part of an area of England known as the Fens, or the Fenland, which covers an area of 1,500 sq miles covering the counties of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. It is an agricultural area famous for its flatness and low elevation.
Not Montana but the Fens: Wild stallions spar in thrilling display for territory
By David Derbyshire
14th October 2009
Daily Mail
The Fens
It looks like a scene from the Wild West.
But these majestic stallions are sparring in the heart of the English countryside.
The two wild koniks, close relatives of the prehistoric breeds that roamed Europe in the Bronze Age, were captured on camera as they duelled on the wetlands of Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.
Crazy horses: Two stallions rise up and spar with their forelegs just outside the city of Cambridge. The koniks have been introduced to help manage a 325-acre nature reserve
Wild horses: Often stallions are kept apart so this kind of behaviour is controlled and rarely seen
They reared up and boxed with their forelegs in the kind of macho display long absent from these isles. Wild horses vanished from Britain 4,000 years ago.
‘It is a pretty amazing sight to see two stallions fighting like this in England and it sets the heart racing,’ said Carol Laidlow, conservation grazing warden at the 325-acre nature reserve.
Challenge: Many of the males in the herd are covered in battle scars and bites from fighting
The presence of the ponies is proving to be a great boost to the ecology of the nature reserve in that they graze on weeds and reeds thereby giving plants a chance to settle in the area
‘All horses would fight like this but if people have stallions they tend to keep them apart so with domestic horses this behaviour is controlled and you don’t see it.
‘A lot of the time the behaviour between the stallions is just ritualistic posing, the equivalent to if you spilt someone’s pint in a pub, then they will back off.
‘Sometimes the stallions are just playing and enjoying a bit of rough and tumble, but other times it could be a bachelor stallion challenging the dominant stallion.’
The 50-strong Wicken Fen herd of koniks was imported from Holland.
They help to keep the land open by grazing on weeds and reeds, giving plants, birds and insects the chance to settle.
Paradoxically, Koniks thrive on poor quality grasses and can die if they are grazed on traditional meadows of nutrient-rich grass.
‘They are a primitive breed and you want animals who are able to cope on their own if you are going for hands-off extensive
grazing,’added Mrs Laidlow.
Koniks are closely related to tarpans, one of the original wild horse breeds of Europe. At the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, there were three such breeds – the tarpans, the forest horse and the Asiatic wild horse.
Although long absent from Britain, tarpans survived in European forests until the late 1800s. They were hunted for their delicate meat and the last died in a Munich zoo in 1891.
Before their demise, they bred with koniks, which are native to Poland. Their name means ‘little horse’ in Polish.
German scientists began to recreate the tarpans in the 1930s by selectively breeding konik ponies carrying the ancient species’ genes.
The programme was backed by the Nazis because tarpans featured heavily in German folklore.
KONIK PONY FACTFILE
But these amazing photos of two wild stallions sparring was taken in the serene, green English countryside, just outside Cambridge.
The two stallions are part of a 50-strong herd of Koniks brought over from Holland and which now inhabit Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.
The Koniks are close relatives of the breeds which roamed Bronze Age Europe.
Wild horse became extinct in Britain 4000 years ago, but survived in parts of Continental Europe until the late 1800s.
Being an island, once animals disappear from Britain they tend to stay gone. Of 724 known animal extinctions in the last 400 years, about half were of island species, and of the bird species that have become extinct in that period, at least 90 percent were island dwellers.
Konik means "little horse" in Polish. The koniks help to keep the land open by grazing on weeds and reeds, giving plants, birds and insects the chance to settle.
Wicken Fen is a part of an area of England known as the Fens, or the Fenland, which covers an area of 1,500 sq miles covering the counties of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and Norfolk. It is an agricultural area famous for its flatness and low elevation.
Not Montana but the Fens: Wild stallions spar in thrilling display for territory
By David Derbyshire
14th October 2009
Daily Mail
The Fens
It looks like a scene from the Wild West.
But these majestic stallions are sparring in the heart of the English countryside.
The two wild koniks, close relatives of the prehistoric breeds that roamed Europe in the Bronze Age, were captured on camera as they duelled on the wetlands of Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.
Crazy horses: Two stallions rise up and spar with their forelegs just outside the city of Cambridge. The koniks have been introduced to help manage a 325-acre nature reserve
Wild horses: Often stallions are kept apart so this kind of behaviour is controlled and rarely seen
They reared up and boxed with their forelegs in the kind of macho display long absent from these isles. Wild horses vanished from Britain 4,000 years ago.
‘It is a pretty amazing sight to see two stallions fighting like this in England and it sets the heart racing,’ said Carol Laidlow, conservation grazing warden at the 325-acre nature reserve.
Challenge: Many of the males in the herd are covered in battle scars and bites from fighting
The presence of the ponies is proving to be a great boost to the ecology of the nature reserve in that they graze on weeds and reeds thereby giving plants a chance to settle in the area
‘All horses would fight like this but if people have stallions they tend to keep them apart so with domestic horses this behaviour is controlled and you don’t see it.
‘A lot of the time the behaviour between the stallions is just ritualistic posing, the equivalent to if you spilt someone’s pint in a pub, then they will back off.
‘Sometimes the stallions are just playing and enjoying a bit of rough and tumble, but other times it could be a bachelor stallion challenging the dominant stallion.’
The 50-strong Wicken Fen herd of koniks was imported from Holland.
They help to keep the land open by grazing on weeds and reeds, giving plants, birds and insects the chance to settle.
Paradoxically, Koniks thrive on poor quality grasses and can die if they are grazed on traditional meadows of nutrient-rich grass.
‘They are a primitive breed and you want animals who are able to cope on their own if you are going for hands-off extensive
grazing,’added Mrs Laidlow.
Koniks are closely related to tarpans, one of the original wild horse breeds of Europe. At the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, there were three such breeds – the tarpans, the forest horse and the Asiatic wild horse.
Although long absent from Britain, tarpans survived in European forests until the late 1800s. They were hunted for their delicate meat and the last died in a Munich zoo in 1891.
Before their demise, they bred with koniks, which are native to Poland. Their name means ‘little horse’ in Polish.
German scientists began to recreate the tarpans in the 1930s by selectively breeding konik ponies carrying the ancient species’ genes.
The programme was backed by the Nazis because tarpans featured heavily in German folklore.
KONIK PONY FACTFILE
- Konik ponies are the closest animal left to the original wild Tarpan horses that lived in Britain 4,000 years ago.
- Their name means 'little horse' in Poland, where they were selectively bred.
- At the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, there were three breeds of wild horse in Europe - the Tarpans, the Forest Horse and the Asiatic Wild Horse, or Przewalski's Horse.
- Tarpans survived in European forests until the late 1800s. They were hunted for their delicate meat and the last died in a Munich zoo in 1891.
- German scientists began to recreate the Tarpans in the 1930s by selectively breeding Konik ponies carrying the ancient species' genes. The programme was backed by the Nazis because Tarpans featured heavily in German folklore.
- Koniks taken to Berlin at the end of the war for genetic experiments were eaten by the starving locals when the Russians invaded..
- They are famed for their tough constitution, unfussy appetite and their ability to survive freezing temperatures of minus 14C.
- Koniks rarely catch colds or fall ill - and their wounds heal relatively quickly compared to other horses.
- The ponies mate in the spring. Pregnancy lasts for 11 months.
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They're rather a pretty horse.