THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 25, 1995 TAG: 9503250359
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COROLLA LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
For 20 years, they have slept beneath the decks of posh beachfront homes, lingered on tennis courts and in shopping center parking lots and dined on freshly mowed Bermuda grass.
But today may be the last day 26 wild horses get to live in the lap of luxury.
A group of animal advocates plans to move the herd out of this upscale oceanfront community and onto less-populated land.
Members of the group hope to take the horses away from traffic - and into safety.
``In the interest of the horses and the public, something had to be done,'' said Currituck County Board of Commissioners Chairman Ernie Bowden, who lives on an undeveloped stretch of beach that the horses will share.
``The Corolla Wild Horse Fund ladies plan on moving the herd tomorrow,'' Bowden said from his Carova home Friday. ``They'll lead them up the beach, through the gate, out of Corolla. I feel certain this is the only solution.''
Some say the Corolla wild horses are descendants of Spanish mustangs that swam from shipwrecks to North Carolina's northern barrier island beaches more than four centuries ago. The herd, estimated between 35 and 150, has roamed freely between Duck and the Virginia border for at least 200 years. But recent development has encroached on the horses' habitat.
In the past two decades, subdivisions and shopping centers have sprung from the barren sand dunes of Currituck County's Outer Banks. Year-round residents have moved into half-million-dollar beach homes. And hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Corolla, Carova, Fruitville and the other seaside villages each summer.
The increased people - and traffic - have crowded the herd into populated areas.
Since 1989, at least 15 wild horses have died after being hit by vehicles on N.C. Route 12. A pregnant mare whose leg was broken a few months ago after being hit by a car now recuperates in a pen near the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. Members of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund have spent five years trying to find a way to save the horses - and keep them free.
Finally, in June, after numerous meetings with federal, state and county officials, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit to allow the group to build a sound-to-sea fence north of the end of N.C. Route 12. The horse advocates plan to corral the herd out of Corolla, away from the pavement, north of the 4-foot-high fence onto the open beach. The 26 animals will be able to roam over 1,800 acres of public and private land.
They will join the rest of the wild horse herd that already lives in the dunes and marshlands - a group whose size estimates range from nine to 130.
Although almost everyone wants to help the horses survive, some people on the less-developed northern beaches are worried about the effect the additional animals will have on homes, yards and even wildlife refuges interspersed across the dunes north of Corolla.
Fruitville property owner Kevin Kelly said he is concerned about the extra people who will want to leave the paved road on four-wheel drive vehicles to see the horses. Mackay Island National Wildlife Refuge Law Enforcement Officer Mike Panz said he worries about the birds and wetlands - where food for the waterfowl grows.
``We're anticipating that the rest of the horses will be moved up here soon. So we're making plans to build a fence to keep the horses out of the flats where the best bird food grows,'' Panz said Friday.
``We'll surround 150 acres about five miles north of the road's end. We hope to have our own two-strand, barbed-wire, steel post enclosure up by June. We're trying to balance all the species together.''
Donations to the Wild Horse Fund paid for the $32,000, wood and wire barricade that stretches across the mile-wide island. This week, workers finally completed the project - including a steel cattle gate that will allow vehicles to travel on the beach, but will keep horses north of civilization.
``We had the cattle gate specially designed in Colorado,'' said Wild Horse Fund member Drew Hodges. ``It certainly hasn't been easy getting this all done. But we had to do something. The horses have just been pushed out of their normal places and there's nowhere for them to go but in the road.''
Hodges said she did not know when or how the horses would be moved out of Corolla and into their new, wilder home. Bowden said the horse fund members requested the assistance of equine experts from Chocowinity. In the past, volunteers have walked alongside the animals, coaxing them away from danger.
The horses have never been corralled north of a fence before, however. Next week may be the first time Corolla visitors can't expect to see the wild animals lounging around restaurants or leaving their droppings on driveways.
But Hodges promised that the wild horse herd will still be within sight of people who care enough to leave their cars.
``It'll be much more of an adventure for them to walk north of the road's end to see them,'' she said. ``They'll still be up there. This fence will let them live and be wild.'' ILLUSTRATION: STAFF FILE PHOTO
The horses are believed to be descendants of Spanish mustangs that
swam from shipwrecks four centuries ago.
by CNB