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This was the most professional and humane horse roundup I have witnessed anywhere.

The Kaimanawa horses have grown in numbers over the past 100 years or so. They live in a unique and fragile ecosystem in high cold country which is quite wet. The average monthly rainfall is about 100 mm. Kaimanawa horses are small (adult height at the wither is 133-151cm). They are descendants of Welsh and Exmoor ponies feral since the late 1800's mixed with local farm and cavalry horses released by the New Zealand army in the 1940's.
Genetic analysis suggests that they are now more closely related to domestic Thoroughbred and local station hacks

In 1979 the population was estimated to be c.174 and there was a call for protection of this remnant herd. Formal protection was given in 1981 and this resulted in the cessation of culling and capture.

By 1994 the population was approximately 1576 and occupied 700 square kilometres of land consisting of upland plateaux, steep hill country and river basins and valleys. In the 1990's the horses were eating themselves out and it was common to find horses starving.

The fragile ecosystem was also under threat and this prompted government and community lobby groups to get together and work out how to manage the problem. They came up with a plan of removing horses from the ecologically fragile areas and reducing the herd to a sustainable level in the remaining area. They also planned to establish a second herd in a more accessible (to the public) area and to, over time, compare the sustainability of management at the two sites.

The existing site is a military training area and therefore public and management access is severely restrained. Land was not available for the second option however and since 1997 management has focussed on the herd in situ at Waiouru. Three small musters in 1993 & 1994 established the effectiveness of mustering as a management measure and in 1997 the herd was reduced to c. 500 on 200 square km of the military training area and the rest of the training area was cleared of horses. 1067 were removed and most were offered for rehoming.

Since 1997 annual musters have removed the estimated natural increase (16% - 20%) and any stragglers in the areas to be maintained horse free.

In 2009 it was agreed by the groups involved that the herd be further reduced to 300 because mustering and rehoming costs have become excessive and there are some indications that the carrying capacity of the area available to the horses is being exceeded in terms of continuing decline of some natural vegetation values. The reduction to 300 was begun this year and will be completed during the 2010 muster. 230 horses were mustered off at the beginning of June, leaving about 370.

The recent roundup only brought in 1 starving horse and this old mare was crippled with laminitis. Most horses were in good order. Conservationists and government officials report that the country is starting to transform back towards its natural state with native grasses and shrubs competing successfully with introduced pasture and weed species.

These organisations had successfully found suitable homes this year for about 150 horses- all of the young horses and some of the older mares. (In the end there were fewer suitable horses available for rehoming than requests. People who "missed out" this year will be first in the queue next year). They had the huge task of taking applications from interested people and doing on-site visits to assess their suitability as carers for these horses. They do a lot of educating to assist new horse owners through the task of re-homing the captured horses.

Officials from the New Zealand Government Department of Conservation did all of the planning, over saw the operation and footed the huge bill for the job. They coordinated the job which was clearly aimed at re-homing as many horses as possible to reduce the impact of over population on the horses and the land. These people really did have a heart for the horses and an open ear to all of the competing lobby groups involved.

Horse culling is always a very emotive issue.

Most of the readers of our web site are horse lovers who would like to see horses running free all over the world. However, there needs to be a balance between our interests and those of the native animal and native flora advocates who are correct in stating the devastating impact that horses have on the environment in which they do not belong.

The Kaimanawa situation, however, appears to be ideal.

All interested parties are sitting around the table and have an understanding and respect for each others views, and are working towards a reasonable solution.

I spent a few hours in the yards with the older stallions and mares.

These were the horses that would not be re-homed and were later loaded on to trucks and taken to a nearby abattoir for slaughter.

Several of them were quite crippled with arthritis and foot pain.

They got used to me after a while and I was able to move around slowly and take photographs of conformation and feet.

Our team had already studied the feet of 20 mature Kaimanawa horses so the poor foot health of the horses was no surprise. The horses generally are of fairly poor type with few reaching 14 hands.

Conformation is variable with most common limb deformities prominent in the population.

The wet boggy conditions under foot foster bacterial infections and greasy heel and thrush were common. The coronets and perioples were commonly inflamed, some weeping and bleeding.

Hoof conformation was the worst I have seen in any feral horse population. The typical foot was overgrown and dished with a number of laminar rings. Medio-lateral balance was poor and heels were often long and contracted. These were mature aged horses (all horses under 4 years old were re-homed) and many were aged (15-20 years).

They had apparently lived with these deformities and foot conditions all of their lives. This indicates that the environment they are living in is quite tolerant of horses with deformity and lameness.

Water and feed are plentiful so lame horses can still survive. There are no natural predators here.

My conclusion is that this is not "horse country". There is no natural selection in this habitat so there is little pressure to drive sound genetics.

Horses are basically desert fringe dwellers and are designed to travel long distances between feed and water. Natural selection does not tolerate deformity and lameness in the desert fringe environment. Natural predators also contribute to the strengthening of the good genotype.

I followed the older horses to the abattoir and took full thickness hoof samples from the dorsal wall to assess the presence of laminitis by histology. I also took hoof wall blocks which will be analysed for hoof wall moisture content. These results will be published in the near future.

To conclude, I would like to reiterate the professionalism of all of the participants in this unfortunate but necessary operation. It was carried out humanely with great compassion. Special thanks go to the hard working volunteers who rehome the Kaimanawa horses.