A breeding herd of Exmoor Ponies are due to arrive at Bamff in January 2024. The herd, or perhaps more accurately, a “sub-herd” (from a larger group located in the Scoraig peninsula) are owned by Debbie Davy, and are currently located at Cochno Farm, north of Glasgow.
Debbie has been working with and studying Exmoor Ponies since the early 1980s, and she is currently finishing her PhD entitled “The Population Dynamics and Ecological Interactions of Exmoor Ponies and their Role in Rewilding”. The ponies at Cochno are in need of a new home, due to changes being made at the farm, and Bamff Wildland hopes to be the perfect place for them to reside indefinitely. As Debbie and others have ascertained, Exmoor Ponies are, above all other existing species, the most related to the ancient species of horse, as any domesticity within the its history has had the least impact on the genetic nature of the Exmoor compared to all others. This makes it all the more fascinating that they are introduced as a grazing species which will interact with the land in ways more closely resembling those from ancient landscapes. We will be able, over the years, to measure how they have impacted and enhanced the process of rewilding at Bamff.
One or two of the forthcoming mares may currently already be pregnant, and so the size of the herd will slowly expand over time, but not to the extent that the area can’t support them. Hence eventually other rewilding projects may also be able to benefit by receiving “excess” ponies from Bamff Wildland.