Why are there Konik ponies at Wicken Fen?
The Wicken Vision is an exciting, landscape-scale 100-year plan to extend Wicken Fen by over 1000% to create a large nature reserve for wildlife and people. The long-term aim is for the soil and water conditions to primarily determine the habitats, with free-ranging large herbivores adding variety to the habitats and to be a sustainable management tool for developing this dynamic landscape. The large grazing animals must be fit for this purpose. Thus, the animals need to be hardy for year-round grazing, suited to the ground and vegetation conditions, with appropriate experience of open landscapes with water in pools and ditches. The Konik ponies we have at Wicken are ideally suited. They are very hardy, cope admirably with the wet ground and thrive on the available vegetation. We selected Konik ponies because they are an ‘echo’ of the type of wild horses that may have been living in the fenlands before the early humans eradicated wild horses from Britain. They are also proven to be ver
