The Last of the Wild Horses - Hardcover

Harbury, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385196741 ISBN 13: 9780385196741

Publisher: Doubleday, 1984

Synopsis

Describes the characteristics and behavior of wild horses, and looks at wild horses and ponies in Asia, Poland, Britain, France, Australia, Canada, and the American West

About this title

About the Author:

Martin Harbury is an award-winning filmmaker whose research for this book took him on extensive travels around the world.

Ron Watts is a nature photographer whose work has appeared in many publications including National Geographic.

Richard Adams is an internationally-recognized author who has written six novels including Watership Down and The Plague Dogs.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Introduction

Not so very long ago, wild horses ran free throughout the world. Now, banished by civilization to a few remote and desolate outposts, they make a final stand against the continuing incursions of so-called progress. Their days, like their ranks, are plainly numbered. If nothing changes, they may be in danger of vanishing forever.

Why should this be so? For thousands of years, the horse offered mankind attainment of the most distant horizons; provided food, clothing and weapons; inspired countless artists; enriched our myths and legends. Today, its role in the western world is trivial or anachronistic, confined to pleasure and occasional pageantry. The savage riders who swept out of Asia rendered battle itself a nomadic pursuit, changing forever the course of human history. Indeed, the histories of horse and man are irrevocably intertwined. In peace and war, so many of our explorations and achievements were made possible by virtue of mounting a horse -- a powerful leap that Jacob Bronowski, in The Ascent of Man, correctly terms "a more than human gesture, the symbolic act of dominance over the total creation."

But even the noblest beast of burden fails to inspire in us the same, almost universal fascination as does the image of a wild stallion. Sadly, that stallion is the stuff of dreams, not scientific fact. The truly wild horse (apart from the primitive Przewalski, some 400 of which exist in captivity) is possibly extinct. All the beautiful animals we think of as wild horses -- the North American mustangs; the horses of Canada's Sable Island; the European Tarpans; the ponies of Britain, Iceland and Scandinavia; the Australian Brumbies; and the all-white marsh horses of the French Camargue - are more properly termed "feral."

This means simply that their domestic ancestors escaped the bonds of civilization and became wild. This designation is important to biologists -- feral and wild populations may differ radically in appearance and genetic makeup. However, true wildness captures the public imagination far more than being merely feral and perhaps the image of the world's free-roaming horses has suffered in consequence. Indeed, my five years of in-depth research, consultation with numerous authorities worldwide, and examination of all documentary evidence available to date suggest that these horses are, for all intents and purposes, wild. Having established their ability to survive and reproduce, they quickly relearn or remember the behavior patterns honed to perfection by their distant forebears. But still the feral tag persists. In the worst analysis, such horses are looked upon as little better than vermin, devoid of economic value, occupying land that might be put to better use. The treatment accorded them may vary from country to country -- but, in the main society's most enlightened position is one of benign neglect. If they are wild, after all, they ought to be able to fend for themselves.

We can no longer afford that lofty point of view. For centuries, we have exhibited a profoundly ambivalent attitude toward the horse -- envying its freedom while seeking to harness its power, admiring its passion for survival while methodically sealing its fate. This attitude, as we shall see, remains in force today. But today, more than ever before, wild horses require our assistance. We have rendered it impossible for them to live in splendid isolation, maintaining a romanticized and somehow independent existence far apart. They have become, through our deprivations, our responsibility.

About this edition

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1984
• ISBN 10: 0385196741
• ISBN 13: 9780385196741
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 191