 Sheep have grazed on the moors for more than 3 @,@ 000 years , shaping much of the Exmoor landscape by feeding on moorland grasses and heather . Traditional breeds include Exmoor Horn , Cheviot and Whiteface Dartmoor and <unk> Dartmoor sheep . North Devon cattle are also farmed in the area . Exmoor ponies can be seen roaming freely on the moors . They are a landrace rather than a breed of pony , and may be the closest breed to wild horses remaining in Europe ; they are also one of the oldest breeds of pony in the world . The ponies are rounded up once a year to be marked and checked over . In 1818 Sir Thomas Acland , the last warden of Exmoor , took thirty ponies and established the Acland Herd , now known as the Anchor Herd , whose direct descendants still roam the moor . In the Second World War the moor became a training ground , and the breed was nearly killed off , with only 50 ponies surviving the war . The ponies are classified as endangered by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust , with only 390 breeding females left in the UK . In 2006 a Rural Enterprise Grant , administered locally by the South West Rural Development Service , was obtained to create a new Exmoor Pony Centre at <unk> , at a disused farm with 7 hectares ( 17 acres ) of land with a further 56 hectares ( 140 acres ) of moorland . 
