Wildpferdebahn Nature Reserve and the Protected Landscapes of the Merfelder Bruch Region

The horse population that gives the Wildpferdebahn its identity was first documented in 1316, when the lord of Merfeld claimed rights over the wild horses of the area alongside fishing and hunting. At that time the Merfelder Bruch covered around 4,000 hectares of shared land whose use and management were divided between the local lord and the farmers of Merfeld.

By the early twentieth century, the Westphalian Wildbahnen, meaning traditional open ranges where horses lived without human control, were disappearing due to the division of common lands and the expansion of settlements. The Merfelder Bruch itself was partitioned between roughly 1840 and 1850, threatening the survival of its horse herd. In 1847, Duke Alfred of Croÿ acted to preserve the remaining animals, reportedly catching the last 40 horses and relocating them to a fenced portion of the Bruch, effectively creating the modern reserve. The name Wildpferdebahn derives from the older term Wildbahn, referring to the open wildlife range, and the area is also sometimes called the Wildpferdefangbahn because of its capture facilities.

Since that founding moment, the Dukes of Croÿ have continuously maintained the fence, the herd, and the management tradition that defines the reserve. The annual roundup of yearling stallions, the Wildpferdefang, has been documented since 1907 and remains a defining feature of the site's history. In 1956 a portion of the broader landscape extending east of Maria Veen and southwest of Merfeld was officially placed under nature protection, formalizing the site's conservation significance alongside its long-standing cultural role.

The dominant wildlife focus of the reserve is not a typical large mammal community but a single species population: the Dülmener Wildpferd. Live population figures vary somewhat across the reserve's management, but the herd inside the fenced area averages roughly 400 animals including foals, with figures of around 300 to 400 individuals commonly cited. Outside the roundup period the herd lives essentially free of human control, regulated by natural selection, climate, and food availability.

Yearling stallions removed in the annual Wildpferdefang are subsequently chipped, registered as Dülmener Wildpferde of the Duke of Croÿ, and placed through lottery and auction to private owners. Once removed from the reserve they are described as quickly losing their wariness of people and are widely regarded as calm, intelligent, and undemanding horses, popular as children's riding horses and as carriage horses. Within the reserve, however, the herd is otherwise left to manage itself, and only one stallion typically remains with the mares after the roundup.

The reserve's grassland, heath, and woodland mosaic also supports the wider fauna typical of Münsterland wet and dry habitats, although the source material focuses primarily on the horses as the central wildlife subject. It is this unusual concentration on a single iconic breed population, combined with its near-natural living conditions, that gives the site's wildlife character its distinctive profile.

The Wildpferdebahn has formal conservation status through its designation as a Naturschutzgebiet, established in 1956. Protection of the 291-hectare area between Maria Veen and Merfeld was specifically justified by the need to preserve pasture for the wild horses and their population, to maintain and promote near-natural broadleaf forest including rare and threatened mature alder, and to preserve and optimize the dry grassland communities that have developed under long-term grazing pressure.

Beyond this formal designation, the reserve's broader conservation significance lies in its function as a refuge for traditional Westphalian open-range grazing. Once a common practice across the region, the Wildbahn system of free-ranging horse herds on undivided common land has largely vanished from Central Europe, making the Merfelder Bruch both the last surviving example and a living experiment in maintaining grazing-driven habitat mosaics. The continued grazing of the horses is itself a conservation tool that shapes the heath and dry grassland communities the reserve was set up to protect.

Management combines minimal direct intervention with one critical annual action: the removal of yearling stallions during the Wildpferdefang, which is framed as a substitute for natural selection that would otherwise struggle to operate effectively in such a confined population. This approach, together with the absence of routine veterinary care and the requirement that animals survive the regional climate on their own, gives the reserve a conservation philosophy that emphasizes natural processes within carefully defined limits.

The Wildpferdebahn is deeply embedded in the cultural heritage of Westphalia and the Münsterland. The historical Wildbahn, an open communal range used for grazing and other subsistence activities, shaped the regional landscape and the legal customs of shared land use for centuries, and documentation of the Merfeld horses goes back to 1316. By maintaining a working Wildbahn in the twenty-first century, the reserve preserves a cultural form that has effectively disappeared elsewhere in Central Europe.

The reserve's foundation as the Merfelder Bruch was being divided, and its survival through the foresight of Duke Alfred of Croÿ in 1847, ties it closely to the aristocratic land-management traditions of the region. Continuing ownership by the Dukes of Croÿ reinforces this connection. The annual roundup, the Wildpferdefang, originated in 1907 and has since become a major cultural event for the local community and a tourist attraction for visitors interested in traditional horse culture.

Beyond the roundup, the reserve's Dülmener horses carry regional identity beyond Merfeld. Animals sold at the auction are celebrated as representatives of a regional breed and are popular as family and working horses across Germany. The reserve is therefore not only a piece of natural heritage but also a living reminder of older relationships between people, horses, and the Westphalian countryside.

The Wildpferdebahn's strongest highlights are concentrated in the combination of a still-functioning traditional Wildbahn with a population of several hundred Dülmener Wildpferde living in near-natural conditions, the reserve's status as the last surviving open horse range of its kind in Central Europe, the diversity of its habitat mosaic including pasture, moor, heath, birch scrub, and mixed woodland with rare mature alder, and the annual Wildpferdefang held on the last Saturday in May, which has been running since 1907 and remains culturally and ecologically central to the site.

Equally notable is the reserve's formal protection as a Naturschutzgebiet since 1956, which recognizes both the herd's habitat needs and the conservation value of its woodland and grassland communities. The continuity of private stewardship by the Dukes of Croÿ since 1847 gives the site an unusually stable and well-documented history, and the integration of long-running cultural tradition with modern nature protection makes the Wildpferdebahn a distinctive example of how a single protected area can hold both ecological and heritage significance at once.

The reserve is open to visitors on weekends and public holidays in North Rhine-Westphalia from around mid-March to early November between 10:00 and 18:00 in good weather, so the visiting season spans spring, summer, and much of autumn. The most distinctive time to plan a visit is late May, when the annual Wildpferdefang is held on the last Saturday of the month and the herd, the roundup, and the cultural atmosphere all converge in one event; tickets for that day are typically sold out months in advance.

Outside the roundup, late spring and early summer are good for seeing foals on the open pasture, while late summer and early autumn can offer calmer conditions and stable weather for observing the herd grazing across the full extent of the reserve. Winter brings a different atmosphere: the horses develop thick winter coats and remain outside, and visiting is generally not possible because the reserve is closed during that period.