South West Equine Protection (SWEP) is a Devon based, registered charity which helps moorland equines on Dartmoor and Bodmin moor who are abandoned or suffering from neglect and cruelty. Each moorland pony on Dartmoor and Bodmin is owned – none of them are truly wild. Their owners have the same clear, legal, duty of care and responsibility to these equines as any horse owner…but some try to avoid it.

The situation on this Bodmin common is particularly shocking – not only because of the distressing nature of what is happening, but because the authorities deny that there is a problem that needs investigating. The Pony Welfare Officer for SWEP stated “If I had 5 dead horses and 3 emaciated ponies in my field at home, the authorities would be on the doorstep looking for prosecutions. The fact is, legally this case is no different. I am watching these ponies starve to death and I am extremely frustrated that all can do is record it. I’ve seen one mare deteriorate so much over the last week that she is now having difficulty walking – SWEP desperately wants to bring this pony into our care to get her the urgent medical help she needs. We’ve monitored her for a couple of weeks now, followed the correct procedure in reporting the breaches of the Animal Welfare Act, and yet the authorities prevent us from ensuring this mare gets the care she needs. Presumably the authorities do not know who owns her, otherwise some sort of action would have been taken.

The situation on this moor is totally unacceptable and it is unclear as to why the authorities are willing to turn a blind eye when there is so much suffering and neglect on show. Most disturbingly, we don’t know why so many have died over such a short period of time – is it just neglect, or is there an equine disease killing ponies up there? It needs to be properly investigated. Only one dead pony was visited by a Defra Veterinary Officer and it was not swabbed or post mortemed – that pony didn’t die of starvation, but its cause of death was never investigated. We’ve also discovered skeletons of a cow and quite a few sheep up there, so it appears that neglect of animals is quite commonplace on this area of Bodmin.”

Another Devon based charity, people4ponies, contacted the Cornwall Animal Health (Defra) Unit about a mare in very poor condition on this common. They received no response from

the department at all. SWEP was so concerned about the deaths and the poor condition of a particular pony that they wrote to the Cornwall divisional offices of Defra Animal Health and Trading Standards (who enforce the Animal Welfare Act) asking for the ponies to be rounded up and properly inspected. The Trading Standards Animal Health inspector for Cornwall Council refused the request. He stated that Defra Animal Health and Trading Standards had no concerns over the welfare of the ponies on this common…and yet the pictures speak for themselves. If the ponies were not in their full winter coats, the true extent of their bodily condition would be even more shocking.

SWEP has received many phone calls from members of the public concerned about ponies in poor condition on other areas of Bodmin Moor and we wished to discuss these reports with the authorities, but they refused. Many members of the public choose to report welfare cases to us anonymously because they are too scared of the people who own the ponies, and perhaps the same is true of the authorities. At the moment, SWEP is inundated with reports of neglected equines on both Bodmin and Dartmoor. If anyone wishes to contact SWEP, they can call 01822 890668, email mail@swep.org.uk , or you can visit our website www.swep.org.uk

To see the full report please click on the link below.  Please be aware that the images in the report are very graphic and some people may find them disturbing.  (A second link will appear to be clicked on also)

SWEP press release Bodmin moor