Petition: Only 1,000 of These Ponies Are Left — and They Could Still Be Sent to Slaughter

Dartmoor’s semi-wild hill ponies have grazed the English moors for thousands of years, but they may be running out of time. Fewer than 1,000 breeding mares remain, and the breed is now classed as endangered. Campaigners warn that new grazing contracts being drawn up by Natural England — which could take effect as early as late 2026 — would, for the first time, count the ponies within overall livestock quotas alongside cattle and sheep, pressuring the people who keep them to remove ponies in favor of more commercially viable animals. Welfare groups fear that could slash the herds by as much as 90 percent and, for many ponies, end in slaughter. Beyond their heritage, the ponies help manage vegetation and Support biodiversity on the moor. Please sign the petition demanding the UK explicitly protect these endangered ponies.

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Once a population this small collapses, it does not come back. Sign the petition urging the UK to update its policies to explicitly protect Dartmoor’s endangered hill ponies and the traditional, biodiversity-friendly grazing they provide. One Green Planet has covered how wild equines elsewhere face removal and slaughter in America’s wild mustangs face slaughter by the government, and you can read more on the Dartmoor campaign via Horse & Hound.

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