The Introduction of the Feral Horse During the Colonisation of German South West Africa

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Vincenzo Cohen | Sapienza Università di Roma

The Tsau/Khaeb National Park, formerly known as Sperrgebiet (‘Sperrgebiet’ in German means ‘restricted area’), was established in 2004. The Park rises in the last extreme outcrop of the Namib desert, Southern Namibia, along the Atlantic coast that overlooks the rocky spur where in 1488 the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeus Diaz landed (known as Diaz Point). Part of the national park is affected by the presence of diamond deposits.

With the discovery of the first diamond in April 1908, a feverish quest for diamonds began in South-Western German Africa. In September 1908, the German government institutionalised the enterprise with the creation of the Sperrgebiet, granting exclusive rights for mining to the German Diamond Company. In 1915, during World War I, the invasion by South African forces began. The South Africans then defeated the Germans, taking office in the country following the war's end. In 1990s, after the advent of independence of Namibia, a shared partnership called Namdeb Diamond Corporation was created when the government purchased a fifty percent stake from the original owner of the mine De Beers.

The Sperrgebiet supports a special variety of biodiversity with endemic species by representing a unique desert ecosystem. In this landscape, still largely uncontaminated, some species of great naturalistic interest such as the feral horse of Namib have survived. It is a species of uncertain origin, but of great fascination for those who are lucky to observe it into the wild. The Namib feral horse population is probably the only herd of wild horses that survives in Africa. Today the last population of Namib feral horses is protected by the Namibia Wild Horse Foundation. Nature conservationists agree that the Namib horses originate from domestic horses, but the history of their precise origins is complex and uncertain.

A group of dark brown horses grazing in a desert landscape — A group of feral horses and foals graze the grass in the wide steppe along the road to Garub, Sperrgebiett (Author's photo, taken October 2024).

The domestic horse was classified as a species by Linnaeus in 1758, with the scientific name Equus ferus caballus. With the advent of domestication, the species has been distinguished from the wild horse (Equus ferus), of which it is considered a subspecies. In Latin the word ‘horse’ comes from ĕquus, that in turn comes from ancient Greek: ἵππος, híppos, while the late Latin word căballus mainly indicated the packhorse or gelded horse.

During prehistory horses were widespread during the Middle and Late Pleistocene, with a distribution in most of Eurasia, Northern Africa, and the Americas. The first archaeological testimony for interactions between hominins and horses dates back to around 300,000 years ago from the archaeological site of Schöningen, Germany, where wooden lances were found amongst fragments of bone of horses, indicating horse hunting. Domestication of the wild horse is believed to have begun in Central Asia, probably in Mongolia, during the Copper Age (ca. 3,000 BC). In Europe the introduction of the horse was made by Indo-European populations, such as the Hittites or the Hurrians who used them in war chariots for military purposes. From Anatolia the use of the horse spread into Mesopotamia. The first written documents about the horse date back to the ancient Sumerians (around 2300-2100 BC) who called the horse anshe-kur-ra that it means ‘mountain donkey’. In ancient Egypt the horse was introduced by Hyksos invaders, people of Semitic origin (around 1600 to ca. middle Bronze age) who took power by rising to the title of ‘King shepherds’.

In the archaic western religious tradition the symbol of horse was often associated with the sun. In ancient Greece the god Apollo was represented and worshipped as god of light, carrying the sun on a horse-drawn chariot. Mithras (an ancient Indo-Iranian solar deity) was depicted on a chariot towards the sun, and so in the Christian religion the biblical prophet Elijah ascended into heaven on a fiery chariot that was pulled by horses. Famous was Bucefalo, the horse of Alexander the Great, thanks to which it is believed that the king had conquered most of the Hellenistic kingdoms. According to the novel Roman d'Alexandre by Alexandre de Paris, Alexander the Great dared to challenge his fate by trying to tame the beast, but as soon as Bucefalo saw his master, he knelt before him and let himself be caressed with sweetness. In many ancient cultures, knights were buried with their horses, as in the ancient Kurgan population of the Asian steppe, as well as in the burials of the Celts and Longobards.

There are different interpretations regarding the origin of the Namib horses. A theory refers to a German baron who was shipwrecked near the border between South Africa and Namibia with a ship containing horses and other animals at the end of the nineteenth century. Others believe that the first diamond seekers brought the horses to abandoned mining fields in the early twentieth century. The least accredited theory is that of autochthony according to which today’s feral horses would be descendants of the Nama progenitors (‘Nama’ is the name of one of the original ethnic groups from Southern Africa gathered in communities of shepherds).

Historically, in Southern Namib the first breeders of horses were Hansheinrich Von Wolf at Duwisib and Emil Kremplin at Kubub in studs located near the Garub area. Feral horses might, therefore, originate from horses that went astray during the war that broke out in 1915. According to another hypothesis, the wild horses originate from the German army infantry, the so called ‘Schutztruppe’. This second hypothesis goes that some of their horses were possibly let loose or went astray during the retreat from the South African army in 1915.

Against this hypothesis there is the theory of the historian Manni Goldbeck who considers horses descendants of South African ancestors. According to his theory the animals were transported to Namibia by South African soldiers, who in 1915 occupied Luderitz. Subsequently, the South African troops were bombed by German forces, scattering horses across the coastal desert of Namibia, where they joined together to create a small herd. Whatever their origin, the horses eventually gathered in the plains of Garub, near Aus, where an artificial water source stood.

Brown horses graze in a desert landscape with distant mountains and a clear blue sky — Feral horses grazing in Garub. The small herd consists in some male and female horses and two foals (Author's photo, taken October 2024).

In the second half of the nineteenth century, European powers, driven by imperial interests, began to devote their attention to the African continent. The Conference held in Berlin in 1884-1885, known as ‘West African Conference’, regulated European trade in West and Central Africa. The Conference was convened by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and France to regulate European actions in the Congo River Basin area. The conference allowed the European powers to claim possessions within the occupied zones leading to the ‘scramble for Africa’.

The land which became ‘German South West Africa’ was colonized by Germans between 1884–90. The desert area covered a large part of the territory with a very low average population density. The massive occupation of the area began in 1903, causing conflicts with local populations. The launch of this new settler society disrupted the socioeconomic balance of the territory and resulted in conflict. The primary points of friction in fact were access to limited livelihood sources such as land, water and cattle. The largest conflict involved the Herero, a pastoral ethnic group who located in the central area of the country and had begun to use domestic horses and firearms. For a time, the Herero moved to Waterberg, until they were besieged by the German forces led by General Von Trotha and finally forced to capitulate. At that time began the exodus to the ‘British Bechuanaland’ (today Botswana). Later, the Germans introduced the Konzentrationslager, a system of concentration camps. These camps were set up in the largest villages, but the working conditions were so harsh that most of prisoners died within the first year. In 1904 also the Southern populations of Nama were also confined into controlled areas, such as the Shark-Island camp, off the coast of Luderitz. In 1966 the German historian Horst Drechsler was the first to consider the extermination of the Nama a real genocide. This would make it one of the bloodiest genocides in history.

The intense colonisation allowed the introduction of the horse into Namibia. For a long time, the Namib horses survived thanks to natural springs, supplementing water intake from the Garub railway siding where a borehole was dug in 1908 to serve the steam trains. When the springs dried up and the station closed down, the Namdeb Diamond Corporation installed a drinking trough for the horses. This water pool has been managed over the years by officials of the Namib Naukluft Park and represented their sole water supply. Today the wild horse population is severely reduced due to the drought of recent years. The census conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism in 2012 counted about 286 specimens, reduced to sixty-five specimens according with the census of 2019. The critical situation raised the concern of the Dr Telanè Greyling, zoologist and equine scholar of Potchefstroom University. The expert pointed out how varied the diet of Namib horses is and how adaptable they can be. According to her research their diet included a range of tough grasses as well as some desert shrubs. Greyling found that an average of around four in ten foals died not long after birth for different main causes included predation, nutritional stress, and pastured exhaustion.

Experts attribute the extreme dry spell to the El Niño weather phenomenon, which has been particularly severe in the last years in the Namib area. The barren plains around Garub on the eastern edge of the Namib desert make for an extremely tough habitat for animal survival. Feral horses have long struggled with drought and have shown great resistance and capacity of adaptation to climate change by surviving in extreme conditions. In recent years the total number of desert horses has been subject to fluctuations, while the number of foals has drastically decreased, not only because of the severe drought, but also due to occurrence of spotted hyenas around Garub area. Numerous attacks by spotted hyenas in fact were recorded in 2019.

Following attacks by hyenas, officials from the Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) decided to kill some spotted hyenas. The intervention raised a protest from many conservationists since the spotted hyena's national conservation status is classified as ‘vulnerable’ in the country. The scientific literature and conservation surveys show that hyenas have always been present in the area in lower densities. Karl Fester, a hyena researcher at N/a’an kusê Foundation estimated spotted hyena numbers in Namibia have dropped from 3,000 in 1998 to less than 1,000 in 2019. The shooting of hyenas has raised the question of the existing conflict over land management between endemic wildlife and ‘feral’ animals in the Sperrgebiet.

Brown horses grazing in a desert landscape with mountains in the background under a clear blue sky — A group of feral horses of Namib with two foals. In the Garub area only, twenty seven wild horses survive (Author's photo, taken October 2024).

In the foreground a wild horse grazes in a desert landscape with mountains in the background. A herd of horses is visible in the background, including a small light brown foal — A wild horse grazing in the foreground. In the background the family with foals (Author's photo, taken October 2024).

Drought is a key factor in the conflict (no rain in Namibia fell between 2012 and 2018), because it determines the movement of animals towards water supply sources. With an average annual rainfall of 100 mm and a single pool of water, wild animals are in a constant battle for survival.

In summer 2024 the Namibian Government started to auction off about a thousand local wildlife species, including elephants, due to the severe drought. In view of this situation, the Namibian Wild Horses Foundation (NWHF) is urging public assistance in funding the establishment of a second water supply at Garub (Garub 2) that could be crucial for the future of feral horses.

Over the years, zoologists have shown how horses can represent an important resource for nature conservation in maintaining the balance of certain ecosystems. For example, in rewilding plans with the specific aim of rebuilding self-sustaining complex ecosystems, horses can contribute to restoring diversified herbivory processes. In this context, horses hold particular importance as they are highly adaptive to a wide range of environmental conditions. They can be also remarkably efficient in shaping floristic diversity and regulating vegetation succession.

Three horses stand on a desert plain under a blue sky, with a foal nursing. A wooden pole with numbers is visible nearby. — A mare and her foals in the Sperrgebiet natural scenery (Author's photo, taken October 2024).

From the beginning of 2025 an abundant rainfall created greener pasture areas than in previous years in Namibia. The number of foals is stable in the plains around Garub, thanks to the recent rains creating fertile pastures. In recent times, spotted hyenas seem to have moved away from the area and only few foals were hunted by them. Photography in progression, shot in October 2024, show small herds of feral horses in the Sperrgebiet plains. They offer a glimpse of the wild life of the Namib desert horse. Their survival is determined by a number of interrelated factors.

The introduction of the feral horse in German South West Africa has allowed for the broadening of studies around the adaptability of the horse in extreme environments and to understand how complex the coexistence between species and their synergism is as a determining factor in the balance of fragile ecosystems. For this purpose, the Namib feral horse has been recognised as a species under special protection due to their ecological and cultural heritage value.