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July 2009

The Newsletter details the GPS detail of the mare Christine released into the desert country and retrieved after nearly 4 months (see July Newsletter for full details of the program).

Christine spent 116 days in the desert and travelled a total of 1002 km, averaging 8.6 km/day. She had some big days where she travelled up to 30.8 km and several days around 20 km. The longest period without water was an amazing 7 days spent in the better feed country in the NE corner. (See map below).

Christine spent many days conserving energy and feeding slowly and would only move along at about 2 km/day. Her GPS track indicates, she spent a great deal of time hanging near the water at the spring.

This was not a good survival strategy as there is no feed within several km of the water and it is a high horse traffic area. She would have been alone during these periods and would have been pestered by colts and stallions constantly.

It appears from her travel that she was disoriented and hung on the water for comfort.

Her daily travel declined over time which we interpret as paralleling her decline in condition. The poor health of Christine and the other mares released in the desert has prompted us to further investigate the reasons for the deterioration in health with relocation.

This study will be conducted by Magdalena, our new team member, over the next 2 years.

In October I attended a natural hoof care clinic conducted by Liberated Horsemanship in the USA.

This was a great experience for me. I learnt a great deal about caring for horses and their feet from this team of knowledgeable and very experienced horse people. We traded a great deal of information during the 1 week course. I came home and re-trimmed all of my horses (all 15 of them!) and felt confident that I was doing the best thing for them. I would encourage people to attend this clinic, or one similar, no matter what level of experience or knowledge they have.

Several of Liberated Horsemanship's field instructors attended the seminar to assist with students learning but also to continue their own education. This is an organisation that has the welfare of the horse as its main priority. The financial commitment they made to take me to the States is proof of their commitment to scientific advancement and continuing education in equine care.

During the USA visit I gave a 6 hour presentation of the teams work in St Louis.

Liberated Horsemanship fully sponsored my trip to the USA for this purpose and I am greatly appreciative to Bruce Nock and his team for allowing me the opportunity to travel there and speak.

Reviews of this seminar can be found on their web site .

Chris Pollitt, Rohan Maclean and myself travelled to the desert in early October to continue the brumby swap study and to get some movie footage of new born foals traversing the rough desert country.

After observing this foal being born 4 hours earlier Chris saw the foal attacked by a challenging stallion. The mare was run off to join his band, leaving the foal behind.

Tough country for a 1 day old foal in the rocky desert.

Also while we were there we did a brumby horse starting clinic for the local Aboriginal men. This went really well and we had the 2 desert mares ridden at the end of the first day.

3 days later.

David, one of the Ukaka men who attended the horse handling - clinic

sitting on a very relaxed mare's back

New Zealand Seminars

Chris Pollitt and myself will be conducting 1 day seminars in

• Christchurch on the 30th January 2010 and
• Auckland on the 31st January 2010.

Email Thorsten Kaiser or phone New Zealand +64.3 6690310 for more information. OR Register Online

Chris and I are happy to do some traveling next year when we can fit it in, so if an organisation can rally a crowd of at least 50 participants we will put on a 1 day seminar. Just Email me for enquiries.

Chris Pollitt spent the majority of the last month editing the first of the Brumby movie series titled "The Desert Brumby".

This movie is 35 minutes of educational dialogue accompanying some incredible footage and desert scenery. The movie will be launched in the USA later this week and will be on sale for Christmas to raise research funds for next year. More about the movie in December.

Cheers,
Brian

PS. Please don't hesitate to email me to discus any issues relating to our research. I am supplying minimal detail in these newsletters and I don't want people to misinterpret our results. Constructive discussion is always very welcome.