Their origins steeped in mystery, the wild horses in the Namib Desert have captured imaginations and touched hearts. These resilient animals have survived in the desert for more than a century and over the years have become a major tourist attraction in southern Namibia.
The book ‘Wild Horses in the Namib Desert’ (now out-of-print) is the outcome of a collaboration, revealing the little-known history and behaviour of the wild horse population. Manni Goldbeck sheds light on the horses’ origins, taking the reader back to the tumultuous time of World War l and exploring the more plausible theories, while Telané Greyling (PhD Zoology) shares her knowledge of the intriguing behaviour of the Namib horses gleaned from her many years of research and life amongst the horses. Freelance writer, Ron Swilling, created a text from the material giving it a breath of life. Finally, from the love for the horse and all things wild, the book was born.
An equine biography of the Namib wild horses, the book traces the beginnings of Equus groups on the sub-continent, following their journey over time to Namibia and the present day.
Join us every Sunday as we share the wild horses’ journey with you . . .
(If you’ve missed any of the posts, you can find them on the PadlangsNamibia website.)
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟑: 𝐀 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟕 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞
The horses had already been at home in the Namib Desert and the Sperrgebiet for almost sixty years when their existence was suddenly put in jeopardy. In 1977 Jan Coetzer, a security officer for Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM), was patrolling the area when he noticed that there was no water in the Garub trough and horses were dying of thirst. Jan had witnessed this before on his patrols when the pump-attendant went on leave, did not work on public holidays or when the borehole had broken down. The ganger and his team at the station house, a few kilometres away from the pump station, had been removed as the railway sidings in the area were discontinued one after another. Diesel engines had replaced the steam locomotives that required a continuous supply of water and a tar road had been built linking Lüderitz with Aus. Workers were now transported to their destinations by truck rather than rail. The Garub pump- station broke down with increasing frequency as the equipment became older and maintenance workers had to be brought all the way from Keetmanshoop or Windhoek for repairs. The Garub water supply was no longer a critical resource for the settlements and water could now be delivered by truck.
When Jan passed through the area, he was concerned that without a commercial need for water to be pumped daily, the pump-attendant would not continue to pump regularly and the horses would die of thirst. On his request CDM management appealed by letter to the South African Railways (SAR) ‘to ensure a continued supply of water’ for the horses. An agreement was reached with CDM and SAR, with CDM paying a specific amount per month to ensure that the horses would remain watered. Jan installed ball valves (funded by CDM), allowing the trough to fill automatically, giving the horses 24-hour access to the water. Up until then it had been necessary for the pump- attendant to open a tap to fill the drinking trough. This had meant that even if water had been pumped into the reservoir, it wasn’t accessible to the horses. Jan was transferred to Oranjemund in the early 80s, but returned to
replace the deteriorating reservoir with holding tanks and to install a new trough and ball valves to ensure that there was a continuous supply of water for the horses.
In 1979, a large portion of the restricted diamond area Sperrgebiet II was ceded to the government for nature conservation and in 1986 the remainder of Sperrgebiet II and part of Sperrgebiet I up to the Aus-Lüderitz road was incorporated into the Namib Naukluft Park, monitored by the Directorate of Nature Conservation (which would become the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, MET, after Namibian independence in 1990). This included the largest portion of the horses’ habitat, incorporating the waterpoint, and initiated a new phase in the existence of the wild horses as they now resided in a national park.
The Directorate of Nature Conservation took over responsibility for the horses and carried out the first aerial count, counting 168 horses, a number which increased in the good rain years of the late 1980s. A group of purists within the Directorate of Nature Conservation wanted to remove the horses from the Namib Naukluft Park in 1986, an idea that was strongly opposed by various people and wild horse supporters. These included people within the Nature Conservation body, the general public and Dr FJ van der Merwe, Director of Animal Production of the Department of Agriculture in South Africa, who had written the first report on the horses in 1984. Due to the strong outcry, no action was taken and the horses remained safely in the Namib Naukluft Park.
Dr van der Merwe obtained permission from the Directorate of Nature Conservation in 1987 to capture ten of the horses for research purposes. These horses were taken to the Veterinary Institute at Onderstepoort in Pretoria, South Africa, for research on antibodies and water retention studies. They found that the horses had no antibodies against biliary or African horse sickness, and had no significant physiological adaptations to retain water, although they had acquired an increased tolerance to dehydration. Six additional horses were captured and transferred to Etosha National Park to be used by the Directorate of Nature Conservation as patrol horses, a plan that did not yield much success.
In the late 1980s, the entire eastern boundary of Sperrgebiet I and the Namib Naukluft Park from the Orange River to the Swakop River was fenced off with a game-proof fence. This measure reduced poaching and prevented game moving onto farmland, but also restricted the migration of game and made it impossible for the horses to search for grazing further east. Game had previously been lured onto farms and shot in large numbers. Although the fence was a means to protect the wildlife, it restricted their movement and animals died along the fence in great numbers, an unintended consequence with a greater negative impact than the hoped-for protection.