MA Wildlife Documentary Production film assignment which focuses on the life of farmer Gareth Wyn Jones and his dedication to the conservation of some of the rarest and most charismatic ponies in the world.

These majestic ponies are under threat from climate change, extreme weather conditions, hybridisation (diluting the gene pool by other breeds being let loose and interbreeding) and from lack of funds to support the legal requirement for chipping and passports.

These rare and ancient ponies are entirely 'organic'; left to their own devices, they have no antibiotics and are not wormed. They are an important part of the ecosystem in which they live.

Gareth (Secretary of the Carneddau Mountain Pony Society) and his volunteers gather the ponies once a year from the peaks of the bitterly cold and windswept Carneddau mountain range. The task requires skill and is dangerous.

This is the minimum amount of intervention necessary to support the ponies; any more and they would no longer be wild and resilient; any less and they may not survive the harsh conditions of the tallest mountains in Wales.

Funding is short and unreliable (currently 5 years' worth remaining in 2019). Despite these hard conditions, the volunteers continue to gather the ponies for their yearly health check, dedicated to conserving these ponies.

A short five minute film, made in north Wales, 2020.

Contact:
[email protected]
www.antoniasalter.co.uk