A day spent with the wild horses of The Outer Banks...

Good morning friends! I hope that you're having a great day.

Every so often you get to capture a few hours that are so special that it makes your heart sing. And that defines last Saturday for me. One of the things that I wanted to do when we were at The Outer Banks was to see one of the places where wild horses still roam free. The nice lady at the welcome center to The Banks suggested Corolla, which is at the northern end, so we drove up there to see if we could get on one of the tours. Since "the season" has not really started yet, we were able to get on the next jeep that went out. You must go out there in a four-wheel drive vehicle, as the roads are not paved, and you also need to be able to get up into the dunes. Highway 12, on which you travel the length of The Outer Banks, is not paved in the area where the horses live, known as the north beach. A sound-to-sea fence was built to keep the horses out of Corolla's populated areas, with cattle guards installed near the end of the paved road and at a gate along the northernmost fence.

The wild horses once called the entire 175 miles of this barrier island their home, but are now confined to about 11 miles that amounts to about 7,500 acres of the north beach. Over 70 percent of the land they roam is privately owned and therefore subject to development. Per the Wild Horse Ordinance, it is unlawful for people to feed a wild horse or to intentionally come within 50 feet of one. Violators can be cited and fined.

The horses are descended from Colonial Spanish Mustangs, and arrived here almost 500 years ago when Spanish explorers brought them over on ships. It was believed that the horses swam ashore during shipwrecks, were put overboard when they ran aground on sand bars, or simply left behind when colonies failed and colonists fled.

The herd of horses must be maintained at certain numbers to stay healthy and pure. They have learned to survive by eating what grows on the island, so if you feed them what you would normally give a domesticated horse, they will get colic and have to be removed from the island. Karen Hileman McCalpin, who wrote the book from which I extracted much of the factual information in this post, takes them to her place and they are nursed back to health. Once they are exposed to domestic horses they can never be returned to the island since the wild horses have no immunity to disease. Rescued horses are adopted out to people who are on waiting lists to receive them. If the population is decimated, they will become extinct. Karen heads up The Corolla Wild Horse Fund, Inc., which is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to protect, preserve and manage the herd. They also promote the continued preservation of this land as a permanent sanctuary for the horses. This is not an easy task given the greed (my words, not Karen's) of land developers who at some point will not be happy with building single family houses, but will move on to commercial development.

What is remarkable is that for almost 500 years they have survived fierce hurricanes, unrelenting nor'easters, severe droughts, floods and swarms of biting insects. And the encroachment of "civilization". Bear in mind that 70 percent of the land in this area is privately owned, with many houses up in the dunes. This unpaved section of Highway 12 sees much traffic, especially in the summer, but cannot be restricted as such because it is the only access to the homes on this beach. What is amazing about it is that you drive along the highway, which is subject to speed limits and any other rules of highway driving, and horses cross over to get back and forth from the dunes to the shore. You see sunbathers with their vehicles pulled over to the side of their beach chairs, and they are OK as long as they stay off of the "road".

We took this tour in an open jeep. Below are some of the photos that I took with a telescopic lens, so it looks like I was close to the horses, but was not. The jeep was rather bumpy, so I tried to post the best photos. I hope you like horses, because there are a lot!

Horses in the dunes...

Grazing in someones front yard...

Homes in the dunes...

Tree stump with reflector (on Highway 12).

Once the shore was about one mile further out,

and this area was full of trees. As the shoreline moved in,

the salt water preserved the stumps. Reflectors keep

you from hitting them at night...

Hoof prints in the sand crossing the highway...

The joke's on us!!...

Horses at the shore...

Horses are not the only beings that live here...

Two mares and a young horse.

A small group of mares, sometimes with one or two youngsters,

travel with one stallion in what is called a harem...

Aren't they beauties?...

A stallion crossing Highway 12 to take his harem back to the dunes.

Just like us, they come down to the shore when the weather is nice,

and then return home afterwards.

I took these pictures leaning out the back of the jeep to show

the cars coming down the highway behind us...

The jeep you see on the side in this picture is one

of two that traveled with us...

Back in the dunes...

Another stallion...

...with part of his harem.

And note the mile marker and signs...

Note: If you would like to see two YouTube videos on this subject, go to my side-bar, click "Follow me on Pinterest", and check out my "Nurturing Nature" Pinterest Board. The one entitled "Outer Banks Wild Horses-Corolla, NC" is one that shows exactly what we saw on from the jeep (not our video). The other, entitled "Wild Horses of Corolla on International TV, was by Karen McCalpin's group and is very informational. (We met her in the gift shop where you can by T-shirts and such, with proceeds going to the non-profit.)

I would not be at all upset if I had to spend some more time in this beautiful place! Thanks for coming by!