John Harte on Konik ponys, the closest living relative to Britain’s ancient wild horses.

The National Trust’s Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire is one of Europe’s most important wetlands and covers 930 hectares. It is home to over 8,000 species of wildlife. You can get a real sense of what Fenland Cambridgeshire was like before it was drained.

Here you can watch and hear Bitterns, Reed Warblers, Marsh Harriers and Barn Owls, in their natural habitat. In the last few years a new animal has been introduced to the Fen with the purpose of managing the vegetation. This one has a long, and at times a very dark, and sad history.

This animal is the Konik pony, the closest horse living to the wild Tarpan horse that lived in Britain thousands of years a go.

We often think of only humans being involved in mans desire to fight each other in wars, but animals like the Konik pony get caught up in them as well.

Konik means small horse in Polish and they are a close relation of breeds that roamed bronze age Europe and are descended from the Tarpan, a wild European horse that was hunted to extinction in Britain 4,000 years a go. The Tarpan survived elsewhere in Europe until the early 1900s when the last captive one died in a zoo. Before the Tarpans sad demise they used to breed with the European Konik herds.

In the early 1900s a Polish scientist noticed that Tarpan coloured foals were still being born to Konik mares in areas where the Tarpan used to inhabit.

They set about trying to back breed the Tarpan by selecting these foals and breeding them over generations. The Tarpan had featured heavily in German folklore and their scientists became very interested in the back breeding experiments involving the Konik. Between the two world wars the Nazi party gave full support to the German Zoos, who wished to pursue the back breeding of the Tarpan using the Konik pony.

Early in the Second World War the German armies invaded Poland, and so began the darkest period in the history of these horses. Whole herds of Koniks were stolen and taken back to Germany where they were subject of a genetic experiment to try and bring back the Tarpan.

Things got even worse for the breed as the War drew to an end. The Russians attacked and laid siege to Berlin. What resulted was one of the bloodiest battles of history.

The starving population of Berlin ate whatever they could to stay alive, including the Konik ponies that were part of the experiments. Polish scientists managed to protect some of the wild herds they were looking after, and when the war ended these were allowed to repopulate the National Parks of Poland, which was now under Russian control.

Then the Cold War started, and the Iron Curtain fell over Eastern Europe, so it was not until after the Berlin Wall came down that the Koniks started to come to national parks across Europe. The Wicken Fen herd started with one stallion, four mares and one yearling in 2003, and a further herd was added in 2004 of one stallion, four mares and two yearlings. In 2008 the two herds were amalgamated and now total 43.

They are currently ranging over 120 hectares of Wicken Fen. There is also a separate non breeding herd of 12 ponies in a different part of the Fen. Koniks are hardy , robust ,and have a tough constitution.They are adapted to survive in very cold temperatures. They keep the Wetlands open by grazing on weeds, reeds, and grass, helping to stimulate the wildlife development in Wicken Fen. They thrive on poor grasses and grow to about 13.1 hands high. These ponies have large heads, broad bodies and strong legs, their colouration is unique and they fit into the fenland ecosystem like they were meant to be there. They rarely get ill, and any wounds they get heal quicker than most other breeds of horse.

For semi wild ponies they also have a fairly placid temperament. In Poland they were used in harness and for light draft work but it is in these nature reserves that you can get a sense of how the herds used to be in the wild. If you get the chance, go and watch them for a while, as you can get some fascinating insights into the horse behaviour of a herd.

Today these ponies can also be found in Nature Reserves in Kent, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Somerset, and in Nature Reserves and Parks in Holland, Belgium, France, Germany and Latvia