Four rare Northumberland ponies ended up far from home over the Easter weekend after a gate was left open by visitors on a nature reserve.
The Exmoor ponies have called the Benshaw Moor nature reserve, near Elsdon, home for less than a month after being donated by the Moorland Mousie Trust in Dulverton, Somerset. They have free rein over the 600 acre site which Northumberland Wildlife Trust acquired in 2019, with the animals part of the Flexigraze conservation grazing scheme, an aspect of the charity's management plan for the reserve.
However, the four hooved beasts had free rein over the local roads north of the Wallington Estate over Easter weekend when a gate at the reserve was left open. The Wildlife Trust believe that visitors left the gate open, and that it not only put the ponies at risk, but also motorists and walkers; as the ponies may have bolted due to not being used to open roads with cars on them.
