LIFE in Common Land team went to the "rapa das bestas" in Madriñán, in the Miñotos mountain of Ourol's council. It is a private celebration in which the commoners and friends gather the "bestas or horses of the mountain" in a "curro" to shave their manes, clean them of parasites and sell some of their foals. With this ancestral tradition, the commoners of this locality of the Serra do Xistral keep alive a traditional rite and preserve the system of wild horses free management in the mountain, essential for the wet heaths of this natural environment are kept in a good conservation state.
For the last three years, LIFE in Common Land team has been tracking the mares with GPS collars in about 15 herds of horses throughout the Xistral. These collars transmit the position of the horses every hour providing a wealth of information.
So far, this technological monitoring allowed the technical staff of this project to know the extension of the areas where the herds move, between 120 and 350 hectares. It was also learned that in areas where there is hardly any human presence or intervention, the herds of horses barely overlap their championship areas. In addition, the horses make certain seasonal movements. In winter, they use the lower elevations where heather abounds and in summer, they move to the higher areas of the hills covered by the immense bogs.
