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Sunday 24th August 2003
They went off to see the pony rescue place today. SWEP, it’s called. HE says it’s for South West Equine Protection but I’ve heard of it as something THEY mix with alcohol so I wonder if HE was mixing it up with the what he had for lunch? Anyway, he tells me it was over the far side of Dartmoor and they passed loads and loads of mares with foals just roaming about over the moor. I was so jealous, I could hardly contain myself. After all. I’m a wild Dartmoor horse now so why can’t I have foals like them. I long sometimes for a youngster to play with and frolic about. The old boys are good company most of the time but, let’s face it, they are not big on frolic, are they? Colic, maybe. Frolic, never! The nearest old Treg gets to a frolic is when he tries to remember who he is, when he wakes up. You can see his eyes frolicking about in his head like mad, until it comes to him. And Wicky? A mad dash for the feed bucket and that’s him for the day, or at least, until another feed bucket appears.
So, what was at SWEP. You’ve guessed it. Mares and foals! Even the rescues either come with foals or they are pregnant and then deliver at SWEP. God knows what their morals must be like, on the moor, (lucky devils). It would appear that one of the main problems is that most moorland ponies are like Wicky. Not to look at. Or, at least, not all of them. No, it is their habit of getting food out of tourists, by begging on the roadside. This encourages the humans to feed them (which is, of course, the whole point of being lovely and cuddly and all) and this attracts more ponies by the roadside, etc. etc. Nothing wrong in that, you say. Humans get all warm and squashy feelings and ponies get treats and everyone’s happy, right? Wrong! The problem is that the humans don’t live on the moors, and they have to get there, from where they live and where their treat shops are. And that is a bit too far for their poor little weak legs to take them, so they use their mote-motes. And, so as not to be late for feeding their pony friends they drive a bit fast and can’t stop when their pony friends come out onto the road to greet them. Which is where SWEP comes in. Sometimes it is just to take in the orphans after their mothers have been knocked down and killed and, at other times, it is to hold down the suffering pony while it is shot to put it out of it’s misery.
I gather there are two answers. Either for humans to drive very slowly or to fence the roads off. The problem is, half the humans say fences won’t look as pretty as the miles and miles of granite walls and the other half say they can’t slow down, as they will be a few minutes late for where they started off going to, a few minutes too late. And so, in true human style, nothing at all is done. Well then, if you humans won’t do anything to stop the slaughter then at least you should send a large donation of money to SWEP, so that they can continue picking up the pieces for you.
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