Dartmoor ponies will soon be on sale on the internet in an attempt to create a new market for the declining breed.

The Friends of the Dartmoor Hill Pony (FDHP) have secured �20,000 of lottery funding for a new website to attract buyers from all over the country.

In recent years, ponies from the moor have been sold at traditional sales for as little as the price of a pint of milk.

Others have been shot if they could not be sold.

'Contact point'

Over the past 50 years, the number of Dartmoor ponies has declined from 30,000 to between 2,000 and 3,000.

The FDHP was set up more than a year ago when a number of moorland farmers got together to formulate a new plan for marketing the ponies.

The website will save the ponies and will make the market we need

Charlotte Faulkner, FDHP

It's new website - dartmoorhillpony.com - was funded by the lottery's local heritage initiative and aims to attract better prices for the ponies.

It will be launched on 30 July.

Charlotte Faulkner, secretary of the FDHP, said: "The website will provide a point of contact between pony breeders and people interested in buying them.

"People can make an offer through the Friends."

The website will contain details and history of all the herds on the moor and the ponies which are for sale.

Identify herds

"The website will save the ponies and will make the market we need - in fact they can save themselves", said Mrs Faulkner.

She said that the animals were "worth their weight in gold keeping the moor from becoming a gorse wilderness."

The website, supported by the Dartmoor National Park Committee and the Commoners Council, will also carry information enabling visitors to identify herds as they travelled across the wilderness.

It will also carry stories and breeding information from local people about their herds.