A herd of Wild Horses are sent to help an Ashford nature reserve teem with Wildlife again. In an Innovative, new partnership between Wildwood Trust and The White Cliffs Countryside Project a small herd of wild horses are being used to help breath life back into one of Kent’s most important local nature reserves. The wild horses were let out to roam free on Gibbin’s Brook nature reserve in Sellinge, nr Ashford on Tuesday 18th December 2007. The Nature Reserve is one of only three small pieces of fenland habitat left in Kent, UK. Its valuable wildlife has been threatened by scrub encroachment. Due to the water logged conditions modern farm animals are unsuited to graze this habitat but the Wild horses are perfectly adapted to live in its wet, peaty soil. Thanks to the horses, the sites internationally important biodiversity will be enhanced and protected. The wild horses that arrived from Holland last year are the closest living relatives of the extinct Tarpan, the wild forest horse that roamed Britain in prehistoric times. Gibbin’s Brook, a site of Special Scientific Interest covers 16.6 acres and is home to thousands of Wildflowers and rare creature, including adders, Grass snakes, Common Lizards and Great crested Newts. It is one of the few refuges of on a number of specially protected moths such as the Small Phoenix and the White bar Clearwing which was thought to be extinct in Kent. The reserve also harbour’s some incredibly beautiful flowers such as the rare southern …
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