A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Equus ferus caballus
Bosnian Mountain Horse is a small horse often used as pack animals or riding, this breed from the eastern part of Srpska Republik is called the Glasinački and are substantially influenced by Arab breed. During the Bosnian War(1992-1995) the domestic horse population suffered heavily and even continued to decline after the war ended, resulting in an overall drop from 46600-7000 individuals, 68% from 1990 to 2002. In some cases the horses broke free from captivity, and are in feral state still roaming the mountains in and around the Sutjeska National Park, as with other areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Mo... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutjeska_N...
Mountain area, grassland, Near Sutjeska National Park.
These horses was roaming the grassland of this particular mountain area, we got out of the car and as we got closer, the stallion(closest one in the first picture) positioned himself between the flock and us, most likely a defencive stance and to check us out. They were not afraid, just wary of our presence. Sorry for low quality photos.
Spotted on Oct 27, 2019
Submitted on Dec 25, 2019
9 Comments
Thank you Jae :)
Awesome spotting. Congrats on your nomination, Gaia80!
Thanks@Leuba & Neil. Yes, war is destructive. Usually it's not documented how much war negatively impacts nature as well as the people. I've been told there is still areas in nature that is dangerous to walk in because of mines and undetonated bombs. I don't know how much truth there is to that. However the Sutjeska National Park should be relatively safe as far as I know from reading a bit about it. I've also been told that the horses are left alone, at least at this point in time.
Beautiful spotting ! Yes, nothing escapes from humanity's ugly acts - in this case I hope they are left alone.
The evidence of that ugly war lingers on, even when it's a herd of beautiful wild horses. Wonderful spotting and information, Gaia80. Thanks for sharing, and congrats on your sotw nomination.
Oh, how cool, second nomination in 5 months. I'm truly honored :)
Thank you for the nomination, it means a lot to me :D
Your spotting has been nominated for the Spotting of the Week. The winner will be chosen by the Project Noah Rangers based on a combination of factors including: uniqueness of the shot, status of the organism (for example, rare or endangered), quality of the information provided in the habitat and description sections. There is a subjective element, of course; the spotting with the highest number of Ranger votes is chosen. Congratulations on being nominated!
Thanks @SukanyaDatta, I've been having a break since an incident in Slovakia, wasn't taking so much pictures in Bosnia either as the people I lived with wasn't very interested in that sort of activity. So I'll probably go back in a year or two to document the national park there properly for a couple weeks, preferably during the summer :) However in a few weeks there is more to come, and this time a quite famous national park. I won't tell where yet ;)
Haven't seen you around for a while..Gaia80. Great spotting.