Ever since I was a young horse lover I have wanted to visit Assateague Island and Saturday brought that opportunity. Located 3 hours SE of Baltimore, and involving crossing the beautiful but high guardrail lacking, Bay Bridge, Assateague is a barrier island built by sand that persistent waves have raised from the ocean's gently sloping floor. Steady winds continue moving the sand, bits of eroded ancient Appalachian Mountains. Behind the dunes are forests and bayside marshes. 680 acres of Assateague Island are owned by Maryland and the rest by Virginia. White tailed deer, Sitka deer, snowy egrets, great blue herons, dunlins, American wigeons, black-crowned night herons, piping plovers and the famous wild ponies all inhabit this national wildlife refuge and seashore.
The wild ponies are not, as local folklore describes, survivors of shipwrecks, but descendants of domestic animals brought there to graze tax-free and without fences. (At that time, free roaming cows, pigs, horses and sheep caused extensive crop damage to local farms and farmers were required to pay taxes on all mainland livestock and fence them in.) Although Virginia's horses are privately owned by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, Maryland's horses are maintained in a "natural" way, although I later learned that the population is managed by Spring birth control darting, lowering the birth rate to less than 10 foals per year, enough to ensure a sustainable population. The herd size in Maryland is kept around 125 horses. Virginia's herd produces 60-90 foals per year and are sold at their annual end of July auction, keeping the number at or below the 150 allowed by the grazing permit. The "pony" size of these horses is due to hundreds of years of a low quality diet which consists of saltmarsh cordgrass, saltmeadow hay and beach grass. They drink over twice the amount of water that domesticated horses do because of their salty food supply, contributing to their bloated appearance. The horses escape mosquitoes and flies by spending time on the beach and in the surf, letting the ocean breezes carry away pests. Normally they prefer to browse in shrub thickets.
Virginia's privately owned horses and Maryland's wild horses are kept separated by a fence that runs across the Maryland/Virginia state line, although the park ranger told me that one male last year managed to cross the boundary to be with his true love.
not my video, but...wow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHUIOrPT7Qw&feature=related
