Rejected petition: Exclude Dartmoor hill ponies from Natural England’s livestock grazing quotas
Rejected on
Natural England’s new grazing contracts count Dartmoor hill ponies in livestock quotas with cattle and sheep. Commoners will cull ponies for commercial animals. Fewer than 1,000 remain and they are endangered. Exclude heritage ponies from these quotas now.
Dartmoor hill ponies have roamed the moor for 3,500 years and are classified as endangered, with fewer than 1,000 remaining. They uniquely eat invasive Molinia grass, which chokes native plants — making them vital to moorland ecology. Removing them will accelerate the very biodiversity decline Natural England exists to prevent. Ponies were previously excluded from grazing quotas in recognition of this. We urge the Government to restore that protection permanently.
Why was this petition rejected?
There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.
You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.
we already have a petition open on this which you may wish to sign:
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/772055
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.