Wild horses help prevent fire in Spain Wildlife news

Wildly the Summer Neljlaze forests once came across the Spanish village of Barro, but they disappeared because Lucia Perez began to fall out the wild horses in the area.

“There used to be fire every year, but since 2019. When we started coming here, we had one small fire in the first year and none of that,” Perez said, said Perez. She explained that horses help reduce fire risk by cleaning the underworld between trees, preventing firing and spread fires.

Fire prevention is only one of the environmental benefits of wild horses providing in Galicia, in the region in the northwest of Spain known for its sensitive ecosystems.

Scientists said the biggest flocks of wild horses play a key role in maintaining these landscapes, although the population has drastically loose. In the 1970s, about 22,000 wild horses wandered with mountains, forests and Heathland. Today, only half the rest.

At Heathland Serra to the grave, it is located 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Barro, wild horses of food on the yellow flowers of Gorse – highly flammable plants. “Selective cleaning (Gorse) horses help prevent fire,” Laura Lagos said, a researcher at the University of Corun.

Grazing a horse allows other plants, like a purple flowering heather and white asphodel, to flourish, explained Lagos. “It also helps preserve Heather around the peat, which are abundant in Sphagnum – one of the most efficient carbon capture ecosystems,” she said.

Study in 2021 The University in which Lagos found that the fear of wild horse was the most efficient way to prevent wild wilderness, promoting herbal biodiversity and carbon capture. The study is compared to other land use, including the planting of long-term pine forests, short-term eucalyptical plantation and grazing domesticated animals.

Although sheep and cattle can also help reduce the risk of wildfire through grazing, Lagos noted that wild horses are uniquely adapted to the traffic fields of Galicia. She pointed out a characteristic characteristic: “Misses that appear designed to protect lips from prickly gorse.”

Tooplier, Suševo time due to climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wild wilderness in Galicia. Since 2001. until 2023. The fires burned through 970mq KM (375m2 miles) in the region, according to the global forest watch.

This trend coincided with the expansion of eucalyptus trees, a missionary in Galicia from Australia brought in 19. century. The trees are pyrophytes, which means they rely on fire to let go and rustle their seeds. Their expansion contributed to increased risks of fire, while reducing wildhave pastures because only ferns grow below them.

Galicia Eucalyptus Forests now consist of 28 percent of the total region of the region, according to the Local Government Study. Demand for eucalyptus of wood from regional mlinos pulp has launched the spread of these plantations.

The history of wild horses in the gallery dates from the back of thousands of years. A stone stone stone that people hunt suggest their presence in the region during the Neolithic period.

Over time, people and horses have developed a symbiotic connection. Known as “Besteiros” in the Galician dialect, people who have traditionally followed the health of free roaming horses in exchange for occasionally in the compaction or sale of meat.

Once a year, horses were rounded during the events called “Rapa Das Bestas”, or “Beast Hair”. During these rallies, the animals were in the mood, vaccinated and that minorities have abolished them to prevent wolves to catch them.

Today, “Rapa Das Bestas” evolved to the cultural festival. The most famous event in Sabaucedou pulls out thousands of tourists a year, which gathers to watch the locals wrinkles wild horses to the country for treatment.

Although these traditions continue to respect the link between Galicia and its wild horses, the growing risks of climate change, loss of habitats and declining herds indicate the urgent need for protection and horses and ecosystems that maintain.