Twelve Exmoor ponies are having to leave their home at Coates Common, near Fittleworth.
The herd has been grazing the Lord’s Piece area of the common for the last eight or nine years, after English Nature – now Natural England – advised the owner, the Barlavington Estate, that they would control scrub growth.
Estate manager Stanley Mayes, who is now retired, collected the original seven from Exmoor and has since bred the other five.
He said: “I have now been told they are interfering with the colony of crickets on the common and must go. As I put them there, I have the job of getting rid of them.” Link
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