Kaimanawa Princess
Doing justice to the wild horses of Kaimanawa story is important. If you’ve followed my blogs for a while then you’ll know that names and where you come from is important to me. Today, I want to continue briefly rounding out the history of what a wild horse is. It’s a fascinating one, if for no other reason than to highlight the fact that the plight of wild horses has existed and continues to exist not just here in New Zealand but elsewhere as well.
Mustangs
“In North America, the mountains are often the last strongholds of the wild horses, called “mustangs” that are actually feral horses. There is another truly primitive horse that was discovered in Iran, near the Caspian Sea that may also be an ancestral form, that is, a remnant population of wild horses of that area. It is a small animal but more a horse in conformation type than a pony and could be the forefather of the Arabian. It is called “Caspian” after the region of discovery.
Caspian seems to have absorbed considerable outside blood, though; it shows no dominant genotype and comes in a variety of colours. It survived in the mountains, but again, probably not by choice, rather out of necessity. These primitive horses, represent a gene pool we ought to strive to preserve.
In preserving the last wild horses, we ought not only be concerned about numbers but the purity, phenotype, inbreeding coefficients and also with their behavioural characteristics. Global observation and experience has shown that wild behaviour is hard to regain once it’s lost. Instincts need to be maintained and sharpened. Wild survival is more than weathering storms, heat and cold and living off what Mother Nature has to offer.”
And the horse? What about the horse you say? Well, hold your horses, I’m getting there! I’m attempting to give you a rounded out picture and by describing to you the environs of the Kaimanawa wild horses you’ll get a glimpse into how it is that so many different groups got so riled up the day of the protests and why. The footage isn’t pretty. There were all sorts there that day. In one report I read wild horse lovers were described as ‘dewy eyed do-gooders’. It’s a point of view but it’s not everyones.
The Kaimaniwa Ranges
“The Kaimaniwa Ranges comprise a series of high ridges with rounded crests but steep sides between the headwaters of the Mohaka, Ngaruroro, Rangitikei and Tongariro rivers. In the south, more rolling plateaus and steep land are separated by deeply incised gorges, wide river valleys or high altitude basins from the Moawhango country. They are aligned north-east/south-west, part of the North Island mountain axis and composed of Permian, Triassic and Jurassic greywacke (sandstone and argillite) and schist (estimated to be 150-250 million years old) with outcrops of younger ignimbrite.
The Moawhango area is more complex with greywacke in the north, tertiary marine sandstone, limestone and siltstones towards the south, mantled by recent andesitic ash with Taupo pumice thickening to the north. Terraces have formed where Taupo pumice ponded in valleys. Soils reflect this complex landform and geological pattern. Originally both the Kaimaniwa and Moawhango, both considered ecological districts would have been forested with beech forest over most of the area, podocarp forest along the lower western edge of the Kaimaniwa and Kaikawaka forest in the south of the Moawhango.
At higher altitudes, forest would have given way to tussock, alpine herbfields and scree slopes. Peat bogs occurred in areas of high cloud cover and in frost hollows. Maori and European fires modified the northern fringes of the Kaimaniwa Ranges, some of the river valleys in the Kaimaniwa Ranges and most of the Moawhango Ecological District. Most of the vegetation in the northern half of Kaimaniwa-Moawhango is in a relatively natural state.
The Moawhango Ecological District
In the Moawhango Ecological District the principal vegetation cover is tussock grasslands. These are less modified than anywhere else. Plant pest invasion is minimal except close to Waiouru, where farming attempts persisted until recently, and in areas frequented by wild horses. Occasional remnants of beech and kaikawaka forest are present. Many of the wetlands in the Moawhango are relatively unmodified. They contain special plants, many of which are endemic to the area or occur elsewhere only in the South Island.
The relatively unmodified indigenous vegetation of Kaimaniwa-Moawhango provides habitat for a wide range of the region’s original wildlife. In the Kaimaniwa Ranges a range of lowland montane and alpine habitats remain intact, allowing seasonal movements of wildlife between these habitats. Sika deer are perhaps the most significant of the introduced mammals in Kaimaniwa-Moawhango.
Red deer also occur over the whole Kaimaniwa-Moawhango. They tend to be less competitive than sika deer in all habitats except the alpine zones and are most common in the southern and central regions. Wild pigs are restricted to the warmer lower altitude margins on the northern and eastern perimeter and densities are usually low. Wild horses use the southern part of Kaimaniwa-Moawhango but the bulk of their range lies in neighbouring Wanganui Conservancy. The horses have a significant impact on the highly diverse flora of the Moawhango Ecological Area.
Possums occur throughout Kaimaniwa-Moawhango with densities generally decreasing with altitude. Rats, cats, mustelids and hedgehogs are widespread. Hares are a concern in the alpine regions of the central Kaimaniwa Ranges and rabbits are found mainly on the tussock grassland to the south. Just like the story of the wild horses of Kaimanawa, the land itself is complex. Add to these factors a human element and the situation became volatile.
“In August 1996, hundreds of people gathered on the Desert Road on the outskirts of Waiouru to protest the second Department of Conservation muster of the wild horses. They were there to stop the Department from ridding the Central Plateau region of the wild horses that had roamed there for over a hundred years. Their protest was the culmination of months of very public debate about the future of the horses and it worked, to an extent.
Days before the muster, the Government of the day, under Jim Bolger reversed its decision and instead there was a cull of approximately 1000 horses reducing the population to an approved figure of 500. These were auctioned off to the public with over half of them ending up in the abattoirs. Among those protesting on the Desert Road was a young girl and her black pony, Rochelle Purcell, the then 13-year-old owner of ‘Kaimanawa Princess’ who took part in the massive protests of 1996 with her wild horse taken from a previous year’s cull. They were featured widely in media coverage of the event.
Kaimanawa Princess
Their story is later told in Dianne Haworth’s heart-warming novel for children, ‘Kaimanawa Princess’. The story is a fictionalised account of the Kaimanawa Princess’s life from round-up to Pony Club and eventual success in the competition world and back again to the Desert Road and the protest. When Becky chose her pony at the stockyards she had no idea how hard it was going to be. Hard to train a wild horse, hard to compete with the expensive mounts at the Pony Club and hard to stand by silently when the wild herds were threatened. At stake was the survival of New Zealand’s famous wild horses ‘the Kaimanawa’ who had lived for more than a century on the Central Plateau of the North Island.
Thirteen years on from the protests, collaboration between DoCs, the Kaimanawa Wild Horse Preservation Society and the Kaimanawa Wild Horse Welfare Trust Inc manages to hit a necessary tension in its stride. The gait among them is still a little uneven but the relationship is a working one and perhaps that awkward gait will always be a characteristic of it.”
In May last year a count of the Kaimanawa wild horses has shown them to be holding their own with a herd size of around 592 in the Herd Management Area. The Management Plan for the horses aims to keep the number in this area to about 500 to ensure the healthy condition of both the habitat and the horses.
Aerial Shooting
Aerial shooting is to remain a recommended “humane” option for the removal of horses in the Kaimanawa Wild Horse Management Plan for 2004-2009. My honest opinion on this matter is that it IS probably the most ‘humane’ option right now but in the future better ones ought to be explored and acted upon. Am I going back on everything I’ve espoused over my last three blogs? No. I was raised on a farm, I know the score when reality bites and sometimes you learn that reality young.
Nothing can prepare you emotionally for when you hear a single rifle shot ring out and you know that’s the end of the road for your mate. Ask any farm kid. You still jump at the sound of the rifle shot even though you knew it was coming and it was necessary but it’s cleaner than days of suffering and pain. And you’re right, they’re not the same thing we’re just talking degrees is all I’m saying. But would I go to bat for the Wild Horses of the Kaimanawa. I am, here and now and I suggest that you help genuine carers like Tamlyn and Allan Ennor.
So how does a kid who was raised on a farm, went to the big smoke and came back again do that? Well she points out that staying open to new directions, listening and learning are critical learning keys. It works in the horses best interest. It means assembling the very best information and articles and offering them up in good clean website design because that facilitates succinct understanding.
If it means prodding Government Departments into employing translational science methods, colloquially-speaking I mean methods that close the gap between Policy writing and effecting practical execution of those policies then prod away but make sure you get heard by the person that has the power to effect the change. Ask who that is and then stay with them. Don’t be a nuisance but do stay close and be courteous. Collaboration is not about one person winning it’s about bringing as many as you can with you. There’s no nice, neat box so be patient.
“The Maori word ‘Kaimanawa’ means literally, “eat the wind.” The brave must survive on their own resources even when food is scarce and the future is in doubt. The brave will “eat the wind” and somehow endure. It is a fitting name for these beautiful wild horses” – Rod Campbell
