The hammer comes down on Lot 265 and another gentle pony is led away to be fed to lions and tigers in British zoos

Mail On Sunday (30th October 2011) - Nick Constable)

Wild eyed and wild bred, the skittish young pony is bundled into the sale ring. He can’t know it, thankfully, but he has roughly fifteen seconds to attract a buyer.

Ten guineas, the minimum bid, would be enough to save his life. But then there would be his identity 'passport' and the vet's gelding fee; together at least another £90 on top.

In the October sunshine bathing Chagford Market on Dartmoor no one raises a hand. Buyers in the crowd of 50 onlookers know they can afford to be choosy, particularly in tough economic times.

A few years ago these pitiful animals would have been knocked down to dealers, often from Ireland, and hawked around other sales. However fuel costs and new EC livestock transport rules have all but ended that trade.

And so Lot 265 - it’s the closest he’ll get to a name - has lost his chance. He is ushered out to join some 200 others in the ‘Not Sold’ wooden pens nearby.

‘He’s going away to who knows where,’ observes auctioneer Michael Pedrick.

In truth, everyone present knows precisely where.

Lot 265 is facing a visit from the knackerman. Within a few days he’ll be tiger food at a British zoo, one of 400 Dartmoor ponies meeting a similar fate this autumn.

It’s not as though Mr Pedrick hasn’t tried. Here, nestling in the western hills of England’s last great wilderness, he has spent four hours cajoling, castigating and generally pleading for bids.

‘Where can you buy for the money?….find me a home for the little chap…..good filly, no one wants her – I can’t believe it…all come to look, no one to buy…this is getting to be one-way traffic.’

And the phrase, echoing again and again around the ring: ‘Out he goes I’m afraid.’

For lovers of the Dartmoor hill pony it is another hopeless scene which has become all too familiar in recent years.

Local horse charities buy and re-home a lucky few but can’t cope with the sheer numbers driven off the moor to market in the autumn pony round-ups or ‘drifts’.

‘It is heartbreaking to choose between them,’ admits Syra Bowden of the Mare and Foal Sanctuary based at Newton Abbot. ‘Most of the unwanted colts will end up at the zoo.

‘We realised a long time ago we would never stop the sales and anyway we’d hate to see Dartmoor without ponies. But the market for so many just isn’t there. We can’t take them all.

‘People want larger ponies because they’re more versatile for riding. Yet since the 1930s they seem to have got smaller and smaller – down from 13 hands plus to nearer 11.’

To understand the plight of the Dartmoor pony you have to go back hundreds of years to when these hardy, good-natured creatures were much in demand among local tin mine owners.

Farmers ran wild herds on common grazing land, sorting out ownership issues once the drifts were complete. They established Commoners Associations – 36 of which remain active – to protect their rights and manage stock.

While demand was strong the system worked well. The ponies created today’s moorland habitat – keeping down the gorse and bracken and allowing rare plants, birds and insects to flourish.

But fiercely independent hill farmers have never been good at unanimous decision-making. And herein lies the problem

‘There are many good, responsible farmers who take their stallions off the moor during the winter,’ says Charlotte Faulkner, vice-chairman of the Friends of the Dartmoor Hill Pony. ‘That should reduce the number of pregnant mares.

‘But there are others who either can’t be bothered or feel they’ll lose money from having fewer foals. And their stallions will mate with whoever’s mares they find.

‘Dartmoor is a huge area, rising to 2000ft, with many secluded valleys. There are 3000 ponies out there and even if you wanted to you couldn’t find them all.

‘Everyone – including Natural England and Dartmoor National Park – recognises that the ponies provide a vital service in preserving a special habitat. The question is, how we balance the population.

She added: ‘We knew we’d have a lot of unsold ponies at Chagford.

‘There was a big entry because this year’s drifts were so successful and then there’s the recession affecting buyers. It’s desperate really.

‘The unsold ones will go to the zoo. Pony meat is similar to zebra meat and it’s a healthy diet for lions and tigers.

‘At least ponies are no longer trucked around the country to other sales, or to the continent for slaughter, which is what used to happen. Now they are shot humanely on the farm.’

The zoo-food deal has been set up between Dartmoor Zoo and Devon knackerman Andrew Goatman. He is paid 25p per kilo by the zoo and reckons to get somewhere between 45 and 80 kilos of meat from each carcasse.

‘There’s no real money in it,’ says Mr Goatman, 33. ‘I do it as a service to the pony keepers.

‘I will probably put down 400 this autumn but I do find homes for some of them – maybe 100 this year altogether.

‘The fact is that 20% of ponies have always been culled because they are in poor shape; bad feet or deformities of the mouth. If they had natural predators they would be taken. But up here there are no predators.’

Dartmoor Zoo operations manager George Hyde says pony meat is in demand among UK zoos because it is healthy and fully traceable.

‘Ponies are not terminated on our site,’ he said, ‘but we have a licensed meat processing unit here.

‘We are trying to lessen the incentive for farmers to get rid of their herds by providing a modest price. Without the herds the ecology of Dartmoor will change dramatically.’

se welfare charities struggle to accept the idea. ‘To me, the saddest thing is allowing an animal to be born when you know it is not wanted and will be shot within months,’ said Maureen Rolls, of South West Equine Protection.

However according to Jeff Herrington, field officer with World Horse Welfare, the future is becoming less bleak. Together with Mrs Faulkner his organisation plans to trial an injectable contraceptive drug on 20 mares this winter in the hope of finding a practical method of population control.

‘We have got to try everything we can to improve welfare,’ he said. ‘At least we’re no longer seeing two ponies sold for a pound and 50 loaded onto a lorry to be hawked around.’

Back at the Chagford auctioneer’s hut Michael Pedrick, of local firm Rendells, sighs heavily as he checks the 400 entries on his sales list.

‘We’ll have been lucky to sell half these,’ he said. ‘There are no Irish buyers and that’s the difference.

‘Why would someone spend £15 on a passport when the animal isn’t worth ten.’

For Lot 265, now anonymous in a pen packed with unwanted ponies, it will be a short journey back to his owner’s farm.

And, sadly, a short life ahead. '