what would you think?

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mememe

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i am lucky enough to have holt heath more or less on my doorstep which makes hacking very easy. there is one section of the heath that is fenced of which is around 10 acers so does not take up much room copared to the rest of the heath. u can get into this area through the gates and it are about 6 or 7 icelandic ponies. so its basically like a very small version of the new forest but with icelandics. the poines were a nightmare when they 1st went in as they were young and mad. there ok now although they follow u occasionaly!

they are now proposing to get ride of the icelandics and there area and open the entire heath up and trun out lots of poines and cattle (not numbers have been confirmed but i had herd it be quite alot!) the palce would in effect belike the new forest with the ponies haveing access to the whole area. they are supposedly going to try and prevent the poines using the roads although they will not be putting fencing up it will still be possible for them to use the roads. there is one road that runs through the heath which is national speed limit and very busy which really concerns me!
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appart form my fears for the ponies on the roads imnot really sure what to make of this which is odd for me as i normally have an opinion on everything!
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what would you all think if u where in this situation!?
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It seems a little bit odd to me. We used to have a cottage down in the NF and ponies leaning over the fence into the garden were a common sight, but they have always been there, naturally reproducing and the NF's ranger's argument is that the NF is the ponies' natural habitiat, where they have grown up and domesticating them would be wrong. Bringing in a load of icelandics (which presumably were not raised on the heath) sounds a little to me like they are trying to create a national park with the same attraction as the NF. The ponies in the NF more often that not knew it was in their best interests not to stray onto the road as they had grown up around them, I doubt the imported ponies will have the same understanding.
 
As you know, Buster, I'm merely down the road from you, so I know where you mean and the road you are talking about. It's only a matter of time before a pony (or more) go onto that main road and there's an 'accident'.

I keep my horse in the NF and, although the speed limit is 40mph, most cars do not stick to it. Despite this, and the cattle grids restricting ponies/donkeys/cattle from straying onto the main roads, animals are still killed by cars.

Most people know that there are ponies/donkeys/cattle roaming the NF, but still, the amount of times we get people at the yard gate shouting "excuse me, there are a lot of ponies that have escaped onto the road" is ridiculous.

The summer is the worst when I have found horses I'm riding scooting down the road because a tourist has decided to park their bike up its arse (it really doesn't take much effort to shout from a way back that you're coming through). Not to mention the people in their camper vans that skim and speed past you with zero consideration that you're on (in my case) a young, sharp horse. AAGGHH!

Anyway, forgive me for straying away from the topic a little. Like I say though Buster, I think it's only a matter of time before there's an accident and I'll bet it won't be until then that something is done (unfortunately though, I think the accident will have to involve harm to humans, rather than animals before something is done), whether it's fencing, or taking the Icelandics off the heath altogether. I guess we'll just have to sit it out and see. Do you know who the ponies belong to?
 
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Do you know who the ponies belong to?

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no i dont no who they belong to but apparently they are broken to ride etc so must be quite tame!
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