On Saturday morning SWEP received a call from a member of the public to say that a pony had been hit by a car just outside of Princetown. There was an organised running event across Dartmoor this morning and a runner saw the pony get hit by the car. The car driver did not stop.
The scene of the RTA was already being attended by the Police and the owner of the pony had been called to the scene, so SWEPs attendence wasn't needed. The pony was badly injured, we believe it had a broken leg, and needed to be put to sleep. One of our officers lives nearby and witnessed what happened next from her house. Unfortunately, the destruction of the pony did not happen in a humane way - the pony suffered for over 45 minutes with repeated attempts to destroy it, and this will be something that we will be bringing up with the Commoners' Council. There should be a system in place on Dartmoor for humane destruction of any pony that has suffered a serious injury.
Having a hit a Dartmoor pony by mistake I strongly agree. I would like to see a system in place for an immediate way of putting the animal down or putting it out of pain whilst a vet is called. I was not worried about the damage to my car, I was worried about the pony and the distress caused to the other ponies. It would be great to have some 24 hour emergency volunteers in princetown.
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