By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 3, 1997; Page A22

Carving out a life here has never been easy. The terrain is rugged, the weather harsh, and the basis for the economy a very unforgiving North Atlantic.

But as Europeans began settling Newfoundland in the 1500s, one tool that made life easier was something they were familiar with back home on the British Isles: the horse. As the island advanced, so did a culture in which horses were considered a sort of communal asset, plowing in the spring, roaming the island freely in the summer, and returning to stables in the winter when they were needed for transportation and tasks such as hauling firewood.

Over the years, the pony became so entwined in the island's society that a distinct type emerged -- the Newfoundland pony, a sturdy descendant of the seven types of horse imported from Britain and mixed under the influence of the island's isolated environment.

And like so many distinctive features of this place, from the Beothuk Indians who were decimated by European contact to the cod fishermen searching for a new place in the world economy, the Newfoundland pony is on the verge of extinction.

Maybe it's a death of obsolescence. Maybe it is one of neglect, as Newfoundlanders cast off what they no longer need. Whatever the cause, a horse that once roamed this place by the thousands is down to fewer than 200.

Conservation efforts have been initiated, provincial laws passed, books written about the problem. Still, the Newfoundland pony may be reaching its last generation.

"They don't have a job anymore," said Susan Fishter, the manager of Newfoundland Pony Care Inc., a group established to run a sanctuary for the animals and place them with families willing to adopt the few that are left.

As roads to even the most rural Newfoundland communities have been improved, as snowmobiles become increasingly powerful and useful in performing winter chores, the animal that helped settle the island has gone from necessity to nuisance.

Fishter said many of the ponies belong to older Newfoundlanders who no longer want to pay for their food and shelter. In many communities, a more urban sensibility has taken hold, and neighbors don't want the animals tramping around freely during the summer, as they traditionally were allowed to do.

Consequently, she said, the animals often are sold for a few hundred dollars to horse dealers from elsewhere in Canada, and disappear into an industry where their fate is uncertain.

They might make it to a petting zoo or riding school, she said; many on the island, however, suspect the animals often get resold to slaughterhouses.

People on Newfoundland "have to feed the ponies and house the ponies, and they would like to find them a home," Fishter said. But when someone offers cash, "if it is for a riding school, so be it. If it is the slaughterhouse, so be it," she said.

The pony is sentimental proof of what every Newfoundlander knows: Isolation and extremes of climate have made this a rare place. There are rocks and geological formations unlike any elsewhere on Earth, including an above-ground piece of ancient seabed and a slice of the African continental plate left behind when the Earth's single land mass separated.

There are types of dogs and races of people that, at least before colonization, flourished in their ecological niche. Newfoundlanders look at their lifestyle, wit and language, which includes an extensive taxonomy for icebergs, and regard themselves as a breed apart from the rest of Canada.

To help protect one aspect of that uniqueness, the provincial government recently approved a Heritage Animal Act that will allow regulators to monitor the fate of animals such as the pony, give breeders and owners some recognition and, if necessary, set export and sale restrictions to combat their disappearance.

The pony, said provincial veterinarian Hugh Whitney, is not the only animal feeling the pinch of modern times. Just as mechanization eliminated Newfoundlanders' need for the pony, he said, it is also threatening the Labrador husky, a dog bred specifically for heavy, long-haul sledding in neighboring Labrador.

Snowmobiles have eliminated its usefulness too, Whitney said, and it is not uncommon for packs of the dogs to be destroyed by the same communities that once relied upon them. Bred from wolves, and not as speedy as the Siberian and other huskies used in sled races or for lighter work, the dogs left in the wild sometimes get rabies and have attacked humans.

In some Newfoundland communities, he said, an island tradition of letting sheep graze freely is also under assault, particularly in areas around St. John's, the capital, that have become more suburban. Unlike the past, he said, most people don't own sheep anymore, so those that do are under pressure to pen them.

"I don't think this is any different from anywhere else when mechanization takes over," Whitney said, speaking of the pony's bleak future. "Ponies were of use through a transition period, to where they are of no use and [are] becoming a nuisance."

Among the island's pony preservationists, people like Fishter track each birth, evaluate the breeding success and qualities of the few ungelded males, and try to find owners for the new horses who are interested in keeping them for a lifetime. Like many of the island's traditional assets, the pony may only survive if it can find a role in the new economic order. Just as fishermen may now run tour boats or hunt lobster for the export trade, the pony needs to find its market.

Maybe it is in pony ride parks throughout Canada; maybe it is with people in the forest industry trying to cultivate a renewal of traditional horse-drawn logging practices, a task for which the smallish, but rugged Newfoundland pony was well suited.

With a little work over the next few generations of horse, Whitney said the Newfoundland pony would likely qualify as its own breed, a status that would then cultivate interest among horse enthusiasts and breeders around the world. It is either that, he said, or extinction.

"There is business value in it. The important action is to get buyers and sellers together," Whitney said. "The animal has a heritage in the province, and hopefully a future."