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Regions - Trip reports, destination advice, recommended routes, etc. => Wales => Topic started by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 16:00:37, 17/01/19

Title: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 16:00:37, 17/01/19
This morning i decided to walk as far as Drum, as the weather was perfect for a Winters walk amongst the Carneddau.
I parked my car at the upper Aber carpark, and it was quite busy for a mid week January.
The walk to Drum was superb, and the upper reaches of the path were covered in a few inches of snow, but the ground thankfully was not frozen.


The view from Drum's summit was magnificent, with excellent visibility, but as it was around 1pm, i thought it wise to get off the hills before the extreme cold made a return.


Over the many years ive walked these mountains, ive encountered a few corpses of Carneddau ponies, but half way down the reservoir road, i could see a body of one lying motionless on the roadside.


As i got nearer, to my great distress, i could see the poor creature was still alive, but death was not far away, as it remained motionless as i approached, and the glazed look in its eyes, indicated death was not long.


The cause of its accident looked very suspicious, i am not quite sure, but its a distinct possibility that a vehicle had hit it, as there was a wound on its forehead.


The terrain was very gentle, so there was no possibility of a serious fall having caused its injury.


Its not something i wish to see again, and not being able to do anything, was almost as upsetting as seeing the poor creature fading away.


I am still very upset at the incident, and no doubt it will take a while to get over it.


It more than spoilt a excellent morning walk.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 17:57:29, 17/01/19
Ive just sent an email to the Snowdon Society, to report what may be a suspicious death of one of these very rare, and unique ponies.
Aberystwyth University, discovered a few years ago, that the ponies are a unique species, and are not related genetically to any other known pony.
I cannot prove the poor creature was hit by a service vehicle, or possibly a quadbike, but its forehead had an impact injury, and the very unusual position it was lying in, right on the roadside, showed it had not fallen.

It may be totally innocent, but the encounter has left me very upset, and if someone has hit this pony and not reported it, thinking the death was natural, then the authorities must be notified.

It may be totally innocent, but the situation and position of the dying pony, looked very suspicious, and the fact that i could do nothing to help it, was very distressing.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: richardh1905 on 18:32:31, 17/01/19
It's always distressing to see an animal suffering, Dyffryn. As to the cause - if I recall correctly that is a landrover track running up to the reservoir - I presume that you mean Llyn Anafon, and I would be surprised that a vehicle would be travelling fast enough to hit and mortally wound a pony. I didn't see the injury, or where the pony was in relation to the track, of course.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: richardh1905 on 18:36:38, 17/01/19

I had a similar distressing encounter recently - there was a commotion in some bushes in our garden, with a bird calling out, and I discovered a sparrowhawk with it's leg hopelessly tangled up by a bit of plastic fibre, itself tangled around to a bit of honeysuckle. I couldn't go near is it was struggling violently, poor thing. I got in touch with the SSPCA, and one of their staff came out to try to save it. Unfortunately it's leg was completely dislocated, and she has to put it out of it's misery. The curse of plastic litter.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: phil1960 on 18:37:24, 17/01/19
One two occasions I’ve come across something similar. The first time the poor thing was dead in the Mynydd Du forest and the birds had taken its eyes, very grim. More recently we had descended from Fan Foel and in the Waun Lwyd area when we came across a pony with a broken leg. Nothing we could do so we called the rspca and a horse charity we found the number of, giving them a grid reference,  they rang us back saying a ranger and a marksman would attend, not the best end to a good walk and quite upsetting too.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Islandplodder on 18:41:04, 17/01/19
Must have been horrible, kind of thing that haunts you.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 18:44:37, 17/01/19
The pony was lying on the side of the service road, positioned almost as if it had just gone to sleep, and chosen the most comfortable position to lie in.
It looked in perfect health, and apart from some blood on its forehead, it looked like it was sleeping, but its body was tense, and it looked like it had been there only a few hours.
Had it been lying motionless on the adjacent mountainside, then death by natural causes would have been most likely, but its location and position, looked strange, almost like a pedestrian lying in the road after being struck by a hit and run vehicle.

Its position right on the reservoir access road, looked strange, its difficult to put it into words, but it almost looked like it had been positioned there.

Obviously i cannot prove anything untoward, but seeing a lovely animal close to death, was very upsetting, i am still close to tears thinking about it, and thought it important that the Park authorities should know, even if they can do nothing.


The most upsetting thing, is that its corpse will remain there, that seems very inhuman, nobody want's to take responsibility for them, that will incur serious expense, with vet fees, and feed in heavy snow.


Just a most unpleasant experience, oh i wish i had returned back via the Roman Road route.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: pdstsp on 18:50:23, 17/01/19
A horrible find, DA.  One of my earliest posts on this forum was to get some advice after finding one of these lovely animals dead by the side of Ffynnon Llugwy a few years ago.  In that case the poor thing seemed to have slipped from the side of  Pen yr Helgi Ddu - it was a very grim sight.


Could it have been hit by a falling rock?
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 18:56:22, 17/01/19
That may be a distinct possibility, a freak accident, but i am not sure.
It was the way it was lying, facing upwards towards the reservoir, lying down like it had been positioned there, as if it was resting.
It was close to death, but its eyes were open and barely responding , but its body was not moving as if it wanted to get up.
Such a horrid experience, leaving it behind me was not nice, but what could i do.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: pdstsp on 19:06:37, 17/01/19
The only other thing I can suggest is to contact one of the local farmers or the local vet.


I bet is marred a lovely walk - that area is one of my favourites in Snowdonia, especially in winter.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: phil1960 on 19:13:20, 17/01/19
The only other thing I can suggest is to contact one of the local farmers or the local vet.


I bet is marred a lovely walk - that area is one of my favourites in Snowdonia, especially in winter.
In my case the local farmer at Blaenau was sympathetic but not interested, unfortunately these ponies are wild and of no monetary value to them, it’s  very sad.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Glyno on 19:28:39, 17/01/19
A sad story. Try not to think too much about it, there was very little (if anything) you could do.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 19:41:08, 17/01/19
Thank you for the nice comments.
Like most of us, i am a great animal lover, and i am still missing my cat who passed away in March last year, after 18 long years.
It was the horror and distress of seeing a dying animal, a creature i could not help.
Ive seen a few corpses of these rare ponies over the years, but never one breathing its last, just so upsetting.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Innominate Man on 22:24:10, 17/01/19
DA - none of us can image what you are going through even though we understand how upsetting this is for you. As Glyno says - try not to dwell on it too much.
Unfortunately, we humans have very vivid imaginations and we can consider so many options such as what could we have done better, or what opportunity did we miss. In reality there was nothing you could have done, so don't reproach yourself.
Animals on the other hand are less blessed with that level of imagination (or so we believe) and as a wild breed of pony this one is likely to have had an inbuilt fear or mistrust of humans.
It could be, that in those last few hours or minutes, the pony had that encounter with you and perhaps had some understanding that (despite it's instincts) you weren't the nasty human it expected. You would never know, but perhaps being there with it made some difference:-
In such a lonely/critical time - of all the creatures in the World, this pony had the company of a friendly and empathetic human.
Just a thought.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Dyffryn Ardudwy on 18:23:06, 18/01/19
Thanks for all your nice comments.
Apart from losing my dear pets, over the years, ive never experienced seeing a dying animal in the wild.
We have all seen road kills, possibly a few dead creatures in the wild, but seeing one in its last few moments of life, was extremely upsetting, and not being able to do anything to alleviate its suffering, made it far worse.
Just thank goodness i was not with a party of young children, or family group, i cannot imagine how it would have effected them.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Jac on 21:38:47, 18/01/19
Generally children cope better than adults when faced with death - and keeping calm in such circumstances 'because of the children' helps adults too.


I had the misfortune to hit a fallow deer on the A380  Haldon Hill nr Exeter a few years ago. She ran across, jumped the crash barrier then stood still. I braked but sadly couldn't miss her. I couldn't swerve because the road was busy and the verge has a deep storm drain. As she was propelled down the road ahead of me and not back over the bonnet (Oh dear that bonnet again)I know I was braking really hard though still wonder if I could have done more. Poor thing, dead by the time I got to her but still haunts me.


You have my sympathies DA. I am surprised that pony bodies are left but at least it will then be dealt with naturally and be food for many other creatures eventually even for fungi and bacteria, better than our over sanitised methods of dealing with our own deaths.



 
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: richardh1905 on 07:48:16, 19/01/19
I was braking really hard though still wonder if I could have done more. Poor thing, dead by the time I got to her but still haunts me.



There's nothing you can do, Jac - deer move so fast and appear from nowhere. I've been unlucky enough to hit an adult red deer at 70mph - I didn't even have time to brake, and consider myself lucky to have survived unhurt, as the deer went over the bonnet and broke the windscreen before going over the roof. The Citroen AX I was driving was about 6" shorter after the crash - a complete write off. At least the deer had a quick death in this case.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: ninthace on 15:12:24, 19/01/19
Round here it is usually pheasants that are tired of life and suddenly decide to run out in front off you just as you are passing them.  Why they have to do it I have no idea but despite slowing down as best I can, I have clipped a couple in the last two years.  Unfortunately, both times it was too dangerous to stop to retrieve the body but I expect the foxes and crows appreciated the windfall.
My pet hate in this regard are the people who ignore the 40 limit signs on Dartmoor - no excuse for that and quite a few ponies and sheep are lost each year as a result.
Title: Re: A lovely afternoon with a sad ending - Nature can be brutal
Post by: Jac on 23:33:13, 20/01/19

Out with the group today we passed a field of ewes and lambs. All the ewes hightailed it to the other end of the field with lambs in tow leaving one unmoving,
very flat [/color]  
woolly object in the middle of the field. As the house was beside the field we knocked on the door and said we thought there was a lamb in trouble. The farmer dragged on his boots and trudged off across the large field. He bent over the little body, no movement, stroked it, no movement, chockled it under the chin - it stood up, stretched and zoomed off to find mum. When the farmer got back to the gate we thank him for humouring us and turning out to check - I'm not the farmer I just live in the house it was asleep. 
I love happy endings.