For the first time in more than 10,000 years, wild horses once again roam Spain\u2019s northwestern highlands. The 35 horses introduced by Rewilding Spain are bringing renewed resilience to the land, Mongabay senior editor Jeremy Hance reported.<\/p>\n
In 2023, an initial 16 Przewalski\u2019s horses (Equus ferus przewalskii), the world\u2019s last fully wild horse, were introduced to the municipality of Villanueva de Alcor\u00f3n in Guadalajara, a sparsely populated province two hours from Madrid, Spain\u2019s capital city.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are special,\u201d Manuel Villa, a herd manager with Rewilding Spain, told Hance. \u201cFor me, every day I go to work is like the first: the same excitement \u2026 I always say, \u2018God, they are beautiful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Horses are a key element for rewilding the Iberian highlands, which today are mostly made up of land left degraded by abandoned crops and pastures. Through grazing, the horses are helping to restore ecosystem health and prevent wildfires.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need the horses to shorten the grass,\u201d said Pablo Schapira, team leader with Rewilding Spain. Overgrown long grass can be a dangerous fire hazard, especially during droughts, as it allows fire to spread quickly across large expanses.<\/p>\n
In 2005, a massive wildfire in the region killed 11 people and burned more than 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres). A combination of decades of overgrowth, a lack of megafauna, and climate change has increased the risk of destructive wildfires in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cRewilding is about restoring lost ecological processes,\u201d said Diego Rodriguez, the monitoring manager of the project. \u201cThat can include animals, plants, floods \u2014 such as restoring river flood regimes \u2014 it can include prescribed fires, and any other ecological process that occurs naturally in an ecosystem without human intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reintroduction of horses in the region builds on earlier work: Rewilding Spain previously introduced Taurus cattle, which resemble the wild aurochs that inhabited Europe until their extinction in the 17th century. The group is also building up the rabbit population so it can later reintroduce the Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus). It\u2019s also working on bringing back two species of vultures, to add to the ecosystem\u2019s biodiversity.<\/p>\n
Today, the reintroduced animals roam roughly 23,000 hectares (57,000 acres) of land, but Rewilding Spain\u2019s ultimate goal is far more ambitious: to eventually rewild roughly 850,000 hectares (2.1 million acres) of land, an area nearly four times the size of Luxembourg,<\/p>\n