Learning Wild: Cumbria

We are delighted to invite you to the first Learning Wild event in collaboration with the Fell Heritage Trust in Cumbria this July 2024. In the heart of the Lake District the semi-wild herds of Fell ponies have helped create the landscape and are part of the heritage and history of the area.

Learning Wild courses are designed to provide a unique experience for participants from around the world to explore the role of free-living equids in cultures, environments, and histories in a variety of international locations. We attract participants from a wide range of careers and backgrounds which allows us to facilitate conversations that engage with all levels of society and create opportunities to engage with the local community and needs of the horses and culture in which we are hosting the courses. We firmly believe that, by providing a space in which people can learn about the unique traits of the horses we are visiting, they can better understand the role these horses play in the history of the landscape, the local culture, and the environment. We believe that, by providing these experiences and perspectives on horses we can move forward to encourage greater biodiversity, with horses as part of the dynamic ecosystems that can improve the health of our planet.

Join Dr. Emily Kieson as she conducts research in the social lives of horses and explores applications to domestic equine welfare and developing stronger friendships with our own horses.


Share the experience and enthusiasm for the observational study of feral ponies with Bonny Mealand who is passionate about enabling others to learn from the richness of this perspective. In addition there will be local experts and representatives from relevant organisations.

​For the Learning Wild Cumbria Course which will take place in July 2024, we will be working closely with the Fell Heritage Trust - www.fpht.co.uk to learn more about the characteristics of this unique breed, the links between people and ponies throughout history, the contribution of the ponies to conservation grazing and the work of the Cumbrian hill farmers who are the stewards of these important ponies. The venue for the event will be Gowbarrow Hill Farm, where regenerative and sustainable agriculture is practised to preserve and restore natural landscapes through low impact farming.

ITINERARY


This is an outline of the structure of the week. The delivery of the course will be determined by where the ponies are in the landscape and the weather.

Sunday 30th June
Arrive and settle in.

Monday, 1st July

Orientation. Environment - ecology, conservation, history and culture.

Tuesday, 2nd July
The Art of Observation.
Equine evolution, physical and behavioural. Putting together a simple ethogram.

Wednesday, 3rd July

Behaviour, horse and human. Rewilding.

Thursday, 4th July

Strong foundations, relationship before training.

Friday, 5th July

Summing up. What we have learned and how we can best implement this to improve the lives of equines.

YOUR HOSTS

Emily Kieson (Equine International) holds a PhD in Comparative Psychology, a MS in Psychology, and a graduate degree in Equine Science. Her research focuses on equine behavioural psychology, equine welfare, and horse-human interactions as they apply to both horse owners and equine- assisted activities and learning programs. Her current research focuses on equine affiliative behaviours to study how horses create and maintain social bonds and how those can overlap with human affiliative behaviours to create authentic lasting friendships between horses and humans. She also has a passion for supporting sustainable systems of horse management and husbandry that promote physical and psychological welfare of the horse while simultaneously supporting sustainable ecosystem practices on small and large scales (for both feral and domestic equids).

To learn more about Emily and Equine International please click here:
 Equine International

Bonny Mealand (Touching Wild) qualified as an Equine Podiatrist in 2005 and has been committed to understanding, implementing and promoting a whole horse approach to health and well-being ever since. Bonny specialises in working with wild, free-living equines and “difficult” domestic equines by building trust and helping them learn to be handled in a low stress way. A short clip of Bonny working with some Takhi horses can be viewed here - BBC Inside the Zoo.
Bonny is committed to constantly learning as much about and from equines as possible. Believing that it is possible to define what a life of quality looks like at both a species and individual level. She then uses this perspective to implement a high standard of welfare into their domesticated lives. She is also a retained Firefighter, Somatic Yoga and Mindfulness Teacher and BHS Welfare Advisor and is a MSc student at the Dick vet (University of Edinburgh) studying Equine Science.

To learn more about Bonny’s work please click here: Facebook | 
Instagram

She is also the UK representative of the world renown Equine Ethologist Lucy Rees

www.lucyrees.uk

For Full details click here:
Cumbria Course