by Assateague Island National Seashore is most famous for being home to a herd of wild horses. I had been once a long time ago, but Doug had never been. Since we were in the area visiting family, we took an afternoon to go see what we could find.
A national park, state park and national wildlife refuge are all located along the 37-mile-long barrier island, which spans both Maryland and Virginia (we visited the National Park in Maryland this trip).
The island is quite thin, never more than a mile wide. It’s not possible to drive from one end to the other, so one must cross back to the mainland to visit either end.
The famous horses are feral and freely roam the island. They mostly seemed very passive and it’s easy to see how people ignore all the signs about biting and kicking.
The horses on the Maryland side are kept wild and do not receive medical care. A fence separates them from the Virginia herd, which does receive food, water, and veterinary care.
The Maryland herd is kept to 80-100 horses through birth control (delivered via darts).
We’re lucky to have these parks today.
Prior to the creation of the national seashore in 1965, plans were afoot to turn the island into a private resort! 5,000 lots had been designated and sold, but the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 wreaked havoc, destroying the infrastructure that had been put in place, including a 15-mile-long asphalt road (remnants of which we saw on one of our hikes).
After this, plans were abandoned and the land sold to the government.
We saw some horses almost immediately when we entered the park. There were a handful at the ticket booth, as though they’d been assigned welcome committee duty!
We had no trouble finding several other groups of horses, as they tended to group in areas where people are (parking lots, campgrounds).
Sadly, I’m sure this is a reflection of people not following the rules and feeding the horses.
We were very quickly wondering “are these horses or ponies?” as they seemed a bit small.
It turns out that most of the horses are under 14 hands (4 feet, 8 inches), which would make them ponies.
However, because their stock comes from a horse breed, they are officially horses. Their high-salt diet contributes to their stunted height.
We walked all three of the trails available (each under 1 mile), in addition to walking between some of them. We didn’t see any horses in these areas. We did see some black vultures pretty close-up though, so that was cool.
We also stopped in the visitor’s center, but it was honestly not worth the effort.
There is lots of beach in the park, but it was cold and very windy, not a combination that invites leisure time on the sandy dunes. After a few hours, we crossed this unusual spot off our list.
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