Q1: You spent four years living with the Kaimawana horses on the central North Island’s volcanic plateau. What kept you there for so long?
The horses themselves kept me there. What began as a PhD research project to trial contraceptives for mares yielded instead to a deep fascination with their behaviour, society, ecology and personalities. I did not need to spend so many days watching horses. But I came to know hundreds of horses as individuals and was captivated by the complexity of their lives.
Q2: You say before that you were not a ‘horsey person’. Why did your feelings change?
Before the work began, I’d been trained to view horses as an invasive species. But seeing them be born and die, observing their loyalties and conflicts, successes and failures, I came to see horses as intelligent, emotional beings with rich social lives, forever altering my relationship with them.
Q3: What was the most heartbreaking experience you had living with the horses?
Charley and his band of mares were early inductees to our study, living as they did in the central Argo Basin. Against my scientific training, I rescued one of their foals from certain death during the first months of the study. Eight months later a recreational hunter shot that foal. Then, another eight months later, its mother and three other of Charley’s mares died in a salvo of small artillery. I did the post-mortems. It was grim. I coped by pushing my feelings away and getting on with the work. But writing about it all these years later brought back the awfulness.
Q4: And the most exhilarating?
Rescuing that same foal and witnessing its reunion with its mother and band was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my time on the range. There is a particular joy in helping fellow creatures. But there was exhilaration in the scientific work too; in too many ways to recount them all. Some stand out though. Seeing a mare and her yearling raise and nurse the same foal was neat — this was the first time such a thing had been observed in the wild. Watching Ali — the study’s most successful stallion — beat off another stallion challenging him for his mares was thrilling. And walking the mountains, volcanic plateaux and valleys where the wild horses lived gave me breath-taking views across the top of the central North Island that sometimes caught me unawares amongst the busyness of fieldwork.
Q5: You observed the many bands of horses at close quarters and observed the dynamics between stallions and their mares. It wasn’t always positive, was it?
No. Life among wild horses can be harsh. Stallions compete fiercely, mares can be harassed and foals attacked. A horse’s social life involves conflict as well as cooperation. Their relationships are complex.
Q6: But you also witnessed genuine love between them. How so?
I observed strong, long-term bonds between mares and stallions. Mares actively choose their sires when they are young and often remain loyal to them for years afterwards, sometimes their entire adult life. Horses groom one another, stay close together, comfort each other and maintain enduring relationships that resemble deep affection and commitment. They form these bonds to protect each other.
Q7: You tell the fascinating story of how horses came to populate the world. Why do you think the relationship between humans and horses is so strong?
Horses, like humans, are highly social animals; communicating by sight, touch, taste, smell and sound. And that is why horses and humans can also be each other’s companions. We have shared that unique partnership for thousands of years. At first horses were humans’ prey. But horses then helped humans travel, hunt, trade, herd livestock and build civilisations. Indelibly, they shaped our species physically, psychologically and culturally. No other relationship between humans and nature has been so multi-facetted and transformative. It is no wonder that even today, long after horses’ critical role in our society and economy has dwindled, people value horses and seek to protect them living wild.
Q8: You’ve described the way New Zealand manages its wild horses currently as ‘an exemplar to the world’, but what challenges do we still face?
The biggest challenges are balancing the needs of horses with other conservation values, securing funding, maintaining public support, improving scientific monitoring, and developing management strategies that are humane and sustainable. New Zealand has
made progress through compromise, but the work is not finished.
Q9: Why write this book now?
I wrote the book to reflect on what studying horses taught me about nature, conservation and humanity. I wanted to contribute to ongoing debates about wild horse management and challenge simplistic ideas about what belongs in nature and how conservation should be practised. I hope this book provides new ways of thinking about and solving the challenges of managing wild horse populations.
Q10: What do you hope readers may take from reading Wild Horses?
I hope readers will broaden their definition of what is nature and rethink their relationship with it, recognise the intelligence and emotional lives of horses, appreciate the value of compassion in conservation, and understand that humans and nature are deeply connected. I want the book to encourage a more thoughtful, just, and humane approach to biodiversity and conservation.
