to harm or harass the horses. They 

 painted fluorescent markings on the 

 herd, then fitted them with fluorescent 

 collars for better visibility at night. But 

 the paint faded away, and the collars, 

 attached with Velcro, often come off. 



Still, people want to get close. 



"They're concerned," Dorman 

 says, "but they really want that close- 

 ness to the horses. And you can't really 

 have that with a wild animal .... Even 

 though these horses are gentle beings, 

 they do bite and they do kick." 



People feed the herd nachos, pizza 

 and potato chips. They offer food from 

 their cars. They walk up and take pic- 

 tures. Some try to mount them. And last 

 July, beachgoers lured a 2-year-old colt 



The fence, built by the fund in 

 1989, runs from the sea to the sound but 

 doesn't extend into the water because of 

 public access rights. So the horses just 

 walk around it. An extension would 

 make the fence about a mile long and 

 block the horses' escape route. 



In January, the state denied the 

 permit request, saying the project did 

 not comply with Coastal Area Manage- 

 ment Act rules. In March, the fund was 



"The problem exists now and we 

 need to do something about it," says 

 refuge manager Ken Merritt. "But it 

 exacerbates the problem with 21 more 

 horses." 



About 35 feral horses already 

 graze on refuge land, he explains. The 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estab- 

 lished the preserve in 1984 to protect 

 migratory wildfowl, and the horses 

 compete with that purpose. The refuge 



THE ANSWER MAY LIE 



IN CONTROLLING 

 CARRYING CAPACITY, 

 OR POPULATION NUMBERS; 

 SETTING BOUNDARIES 

 SUCH AS OCRACOKE'S 



200-ACRE PEN; 

 AND UNDERSTANDING 



THE IMPACTS AND 

 INTERACTIONS OF THE 

 HORSES WITH OTHER 

 NATURAL RESOURCES. 



onto a deck. The horse fell, gashed its 

 nose and injured its eye. 



Last year, the Corolla Wild Horse 

 Fund, along with Currituck County 

 officials, realized something had to be 

 done. 



In October, members applied for a 

 permit from the N.C. Division of 

 Coastal Management to extend an exist- 

 ing fence that runs across the island 

 north of the Corolla Lighthouse. An 

 extension would keep the horses beyond 

 heavy development and the highway. 

 The plan was to corral five or six of the 

 herd near the old Whalehead Club and 

 push the others north, at the same time 

 studying management options and the 

 horses' impacts on government preserve 

 land. 



granted a variance by the state Coastal 

 Resources Commission to build the 

 fence as a short-term management solu- 

 tion. But questions still exist. 



Herding the 2 1 Corolla horses 

 north would push them into a 21 1/2- 

 mile stretch of coastline owned by the 

 N.C. Estuarine Research Reserve, the 

 N.C. Nature Conservancy, private land- 

 owners and the Currituck National 

 Wildlife Refuge. 



also must protect "natural" resources, 

 and the feral horses don't fall into that 

 definition. 



Prime waterfowl areas rich in 

 millet, smartweed and other foods 

 growing between the dunes and the 

 marsh are being overgrazed by horses 

 in the refuge, Merritt says. Endangered 

 species such as piping plovers and sea 

 beach amaranth may receive more 

 damage too. 



8 MAY I JUNE 1994 



