Huzul Horse Grazing of Selected Wet Meadows – Pasturage Monitoring Keutschach

Associated persons Christian Keusch
Clients Office of the Carinthian Government
Year 2012

The wet meadows in the Keutschach lake valley are threatened with lying fallow. The local Ramsar association wants to counteract this with a new way of maintaining wet meadows: since 2006 Huzul horses have been used to graze a test area. These traditional horses come from the Eastern Carpathians, and value the grass on wet areas as a tasty feed. Due to their low weight, the Huzuls cause less damage to the ground than other species of horse. Since 2006 the accompanying monitoring has regularly documented this and surveyed the effect of grazing the Huzul horses on the valuable meadow areas. E.C.O. designed this monitoring system and was entrusted with implementing it.