The Kerry Bog Pony Co-Operative Society Ireland

Aisling Heffernan explains her work on the Characterisation of the Kerry Bog Pony

Hello, my name is Aisling Heffernan. As some of you may be aware a project entitled 'Characterisation of the Kerry Bog Pony' is underway. I am the student chosen to carry out the work on this project. I am employed by Weatherbys Ireland and have been working in the laboratory in Johnstown, Naas, Co. Kildare since March 2001.

Early in January 2004, I approached the scientific director of the Laboratory (Dr. John Flynn) expressing interest in beginning work on a project this year. In February 2004 Dr. Flynn became aware that the Department of Agriculture and Food facilitated projects under the Conservation of Genetic Resources Scheme with the provision of financial aid. He submitted a proposal to undertake a genetic and phenotypic study of the Kerry Bog Pony. At the end of April, Dr. Flynn was informed that the submission was successful and the project had been approved for grant aid. The next step was for me to become registered on the MSc. by research programme in University College Dublin. This took place in November 2004. I then liaised with my supervisor in UCD and she was very positive about the project. I was then ready to begin and decided to start in the laboratory and get that side of things underway.

Although all the Kerry Bog Pony samples we had in the laboratory had already been DNA typed, it was necessary for me to repeat all the samples, as in the last year we have developed new techniques that allow us obtain more information from each sample. This information will be used by me in the identification and characterisation of the Kerry Bog Pony. This information will also be necessary when comparing the Kerry Bog Pony with other pony breeds. I will also be working closely with UCD in trying to isolate some mitochondrial DNA from the samples. Along side this genetic characterisation I will undertake a demographic and phenotypic characterisation of the pony. I will gather information on the location of each pony, and characteristics such as height, colour, markings, etc. I also intend to produce a health survey of the population.

I am very excited about being given this opportunity to carry out what I believe will be a very interesting and useful project. I hope over the course of the next year to visit as many pony owners as possible in order to take some measurements and markings. I will be in touch with you in due course to make arrangements for this. Until then work will continue in the lab and on the analysis of the results.