THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 27, 1995 TAG: 9501270597
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COROLLA LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
Wild horse advocates say the sound-to-sea barrier completed this week will help protect at least 19 of the animals that range freely across Currituck County's northern beaches.
But some people who own and oversee land on the 1,800 acres where the herd will roam are on the other side of the fence.
They fear the mile-long wood and wire barricade will impede traffic, increase tourism along their remote stretches of sand, and cause destruction of seabird nests and endangered plants.
Currituck County Manager Bill Richardson assured citizens that the new fence will not hinder four-wheel drives, emergency vehicles or pedestrians from traveling between Corolla and the Virginia line.
``Fishermen, surfers, four-wheelers will still be able to drive all the way south through Corolla,'' Richardson said this week. ``They'll just have to get back onto a paved portion of the road for about a mile and a half or so as they detour around the new fence.
``The beach won't be closed,'' promised Richardson. ``It's just a re-routing. You'll have to drive down from the south to where the pavement starts, then get back on the beach at the lighthouse ramp. You just have to ride around the barrier.''A special gate for fire trucks and ambulances will allow emergency vehicles to drive up the beach without detouring, Richardson said. Four pedestrian accesses are cut into the new fence, allowing anyone to get to the beach. Horses, however, will be kept north of the barricade.
Although workers completed construction and repairs on the 4-foot-high fence this week, a specially designed cattle guard has yet to be built. Corolla Wild Horse Fund Director Rowena Dorman said she hoped to award a bid for building the 30-foot-wide steel and timber gate to a firm this week.
She wants to move the horses to their new northern habitat by March.
``The cattle gate is the last thing we need before we can get on with moving the horses,'' Dorman said this week from her office in the Currituck Beach Lighthouse. ``It will stop horses from traveling south. But cars still will be able to get through.
``We've done everything we can to prevent blocking access for beach-driving vehicles,'' said Dorman. ``We're not stopping people from driving on the beach. They're just having to turn off the sand for a mile and a half, then get back on. To save the horses, it's a small price to pay.''
Some say the Corolla wild horses are descendants of Spanish Mustangs, which 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 line for at least 200 years. But recent development has encroached on the horses' habitat.
In the past 20 years, subdivisions and shopping centers have sprung from the barren sand dunes of Currituck County's Outer Banks. Year-round residents moved into half-million-dollar beach homes, and hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Corolla, Carova, Ocean Sands 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 North Carolina Route 12.
Members of the nonprofit Corolla Wild Horse Fund spent three years trying to find a way to save the horses - and keep them free. Finally, after numerous meetings of federal, state, county and local officials, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit in June to allow the group to erect the fence. Donations to the Wild Horse Fund are paying for the $32,000 project, which does not include the cattle guard cost.
``The Wild Horse Fund people have agreed to keep the cattle guard access area clear of sand,'' Richardson said. ``They have an obligation to do that. And I'm sure that they will.''
Despite such assurances, some residents who live north of the new fence are worried that it will bar them from easily reaching Corolla. Dozens of families reside year-round north of the road's end. Hundreds make the area their summer home.
``Our concern is that the new fence will trap sand, especially in storms, and all of a sudden it will be impossible for us to get off the beach,'' said Thomas Hudak, president of the Fruitville Beach Civic Association. Hudak lives in Branchville, N.J., and has owned land in Fruitville since 1970. His summer home is about 4 1/2 miles north of the horse fence.
``There are 2,500 property owners in Fruitville. And we can only get off the beach to the north in an extreme emergency,'' Hudak said. ``If that cattle gate is closed or blocked for any reason to the south, we're gonna be corralled just like the horses. I don't think there's been enough concern given to the effect this fence will have on the people who live north of it. I'm in favor of protecting wildlife. But we also have to protect the safety of the humans up there. That should come first.''
Fruitville property owner Kevin Kelly said he is concerned about the additional people who will want to leave the paved road to see the horses. Moving the wild horses onto private and public land also will mean more tourists will travel the northern beaches to see the unusual animals, Kelly said. Additional traffic could bring danger and destruction to his isolated beach community.
``I have no problem with the horses at all. My problem is with the people who will come up to see the horses,'' Kelly said from his Ocean County, N.J., office this week. ``Moving the horses north of that fence will increase the traffic problems we're already having up here. ATV rentals racing up the beach, driving with reckless abandon. Trucks towing hang gliders up and down on wires. You'll just bring more and more people up here who treat the beach like a big sand box.
``I wish Currituck County's commissioners would start taking care of business before they finish taking care of the horses,'' Kelly said. ``Our commissioner from here, Ernie Bowden, refuses to support any type of regulation for us - whether it's permits for bonfires, permits to drive on the beach, or just ways to keep undesirables out of here. Our pleas to the county commissioners have fallen on deaf ears.''
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official Ken Merritt said his requests, too, have been ignored by county officials. Merritt manages the Currituck and Mackay Island national wildlife refuges, which include much of the 1,800 acres towhich the horses will be relegated. Already, between 15 and 135 horses freely roam that area. An additional 20 animals will only exacerbate the problems, Merritt said.
``We wrote letters opposing that fence and moving the horses last year. But none of them seemed to make any difference,'' Merritt said. ``We pretty much stopped fighting the fence when the permit was issued. Now, we're working on ways to move ahead and get some management plans in place for the short- and long-term control of the herd.''
If additional wild horses are corralled on refuge land, Merritt said, the animals will harm endangered piping plovers, crush endangered plants like the seabeach amaranth, and adversely affect other barrier island species. Horses already eat grasses and wetlands plants that migrating waterfowl need. The horses and birds have to compete for food.
``We're trying to find a way to fence off a 200-acre portion of the Currituck refuge,'' said Merritt. ``That would keep the horses out and let the birds feed in those wetlands. It would solve at least a part of our problem.''
Wild horse advocates, Currituck County officials and private property owners have agreed to work with Merritt. Representatives from each group will try to find a permanent solution for protecting people and the horses and other wildlife living on the wind-swept beaches north of Corolla. by CNB