Horses are one of Europe’s last big mammals. They shouldn’t really be here: they should have vanished a long time ago with most of the other large mammals from the Pleistocene.
Europe once had herds of gigantic, hairy mammoths; solitary, shaggy woolly rhinoceros; deer with antlers wider than I am tall; and so many more. Unfortunately they are gone. Missing from our landscape. A combination of climatic changes and human hunting resulted in these unique creatures disappearing from our beautiful world forever. With the shifts to a warmer climate from around 30,000 years ago, the environment that supported these beasts changed. Many populations diminished, as habitats shrunk. With dwindled numbers, the additional stress of humans was too much for most animals to bounce back from. The killer blow was not just for an individual but for the entire species.
Horses had the same challenges as other large mammals. The grasslands…
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