Feral Horses Play Important Role in French Rewilding Project

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Researchers use Polish Konik horses to control tree growth and encourage biodiversity in a riverine ecosystem.

Posted by Christa Lesté-Lasserre, MA | Apr 22, 2022

What was once a massive cornfield at the French-German border has become a haven of biodiversity and a green energy site, following a rewilding effort that’s now home to a wide variety of plants and animals—including a herd of rustic horses that has been imported to help maintain the terrain.

For more than three years Polish Konik horses have been controlling tree growth on a small island in the middle of the Rhine River, said Lilla Lovász, a PhD candidate at the University of Basel, just a few miles south of the reserve in neighboring Switzerland.

In 2018 a team of conservationists and scientists brought four mares and two geldings to the island, part of the Petite Camargue Alsacienne Nature Reserve, and they added a stallion last year. Now with two foals on the way, the herd will have grown to nine horses by mid-2022.

By eating unwanted plants and fertilizing the ground with their feces and urine, the large feral herbivores “serve as a part of a functioning ecosystem,” much like their predecessors did thousands of years ago, said Lovász...

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https://thehorse.com/1110828/feral-horses-play-important-role-in-french-rewilding-project/