Wild horses on Karadag Mountains in Karaman

Wild horses on Karadag Mountains in Karaman province

We were very surprised to hear of some herds of wild horses when we were on a tour at Mount Karadag, one of the three volcanic mountains that had once contributed to the formation of Cappadocia.

Someone in the village had said that with the use of tractors for agriculture, the ancestors of today's horse herds had been exposed by local farmers. We can not agree with this mythology, since the peasants of the environment were certainly looking for other ways to "create value" from the horses. Probably more likely are origins from medieval times, where horses were lost during the frequent armed conflicts, and then, over centuries, found a new home on the mountain heights. Today, several groups of wild horses are on their way at Karadag, where the landscape is revived.

Wild horses are increasingly important today, regardless of where they live in the world, and not just as a symbol of freedom and primitiveness: in times of over breeding, we will certainly need them as a gene pool in the near future. Today's horse breeding (similar to cattle, pig, dog and cat breeding), from which also our domesticated horses originate, is aimed at breeding horse breeds in certain directions: some horse breeds should be particularly fast, tempered with long legs, others should be rather small, good-natured and child-friendly.

Thus, in the course of the breeding certain characteristics become more and more pronounced, while others are lost more and more. In the case of the lost hereditary features, it is often the missing part that characterize the horse's originality. Natural behaviors such as certain instincts or even the more robust health become more and more strange to the horse!

Therefore it will be very important in the future to bring these characteristics back into our domestic horses - the time when the wild horses or their gene pool are used again. If these horses are crossed with domestic horses with their original and natural characteristics, their characteristics are also reincarnated. In this way, our horses will be similar to their real being, which would be a real advantage for them as well as for the user!

In addition, there is also the following point: the animals at Karadag as well as in other regions, live in family herds and are entirely on their own. Neither the blacksmith nor the veterinarian have ever approached these horses. This is the reason why sick and weak animals have not survived and a natural selection has taken place. Through these, only the robust horses have survived and their heritage has always been passed on. For this reason, the herd today consists almost exclusively of strong and resistant animals, which can survive even alone in the nature.

The area of the wild horses at the Karadag is huge and safe, so that the horses could spread over several thousand hectares. However, like the rest of the world, the habitat of the horses is not spared: in times of an ever-expanding urbanization these horses were also restricted in their habitat.

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