Locals seek help to ‘coexist’ with wild ponies on Pindos

Residents in the highlands of Mount Pindos in Epirus, northwestern Greece, are seeking help from the authorities to manage large herds of wild ponies that have been eating crops and trampling through gardens in the wider vicinity.

“We love them and we don’t want them gone, but a solution needs to be found so we can coexist,” the president of the local community council of the Ioannina village of Asvestohori, Alexis Georgiou, told state broadcaster ERT on Thursday.

The ponies are of a native breed known as the Pindos pony and, according to Georgiou, the wild population in the area has grown to an estimated 400 individuals.

Sightings inside villages and farms have been increasing, he added, as the horses wander further afield from their natural habitat looking for food and new territory. They have also been the cause of several road accidents, Georgiou said.

The Pindos pony is bred as a workhorse in many parts of mainland Greece, and especially in the northwest.