THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503260170
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: COROLLA LENGTH: Long : 114 lines
With two horseback riders racing up behind him, and a four-wheel-drive truck closing in ahead Saturday, the black stallion galloped across North Carolina Route 12 toward the subdivision of summer homes.
He raced through a construction site for a half-million-dollar oceanfront house. The riders followed at full speed, and cornered the sweat-flecked steed against a sand fence.
In trucks, on foot and on horseback, volunteers herded the black beauty up the beach, away from civilization.
At noon, the wild animal trotted out of this Outer Banks resort community, through a gate and into safer - if browner - pastures.
``That black stallion got down to that fence then avoided us three times this morning. He just don't want to leave here,'' said Jerome Barr, a tackle shop owner from Chocowinity, N.C., who led four riders in corralling 11 wild horses north of Corolla.
``Ain't no horse in its right mind would want to leave all this tender green grass for a wilderness wildlife refuge. I don't blame him,'' Barr said, smiling beneath his broad-brimmed cowboy hat.
``All they got to go to up there is sand dunes and marsh. Folks oughta plant them some real grass up there. That way, maybe they'd want to stay in their new home.''
Some say wild horses have roamed North Carolina's northern barrier island beaches for four centuries. Ancestors of the herd may have been Spanish mustangs who swam ashore from shipwrecks. Between 35 and 150 of the horses have ranged freely between Duck and the Virginia border for at least 200 years.
But recent development has encroached on the horses' habitat.
Subdivisions, shopping centers and upscale vacation complexes have sprung from the sand dunes in the past 20 years. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Currituck County's seaside villages each summer. Traffic has killed at least 15 wild horses since 1989.
Five years ago, a group of local residents formed the Corolla Wild Horse Fund to help save the unusual herd from extinction. Volunteers raised $32,000 in donations, secured a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a sound-to-sea fence and completed the 4-foot-high, wood-and-wire barrier last week.
The mile-long fence begins at the end of N.C. Route 12 - between the most northern subdivision in Corolla and the southern border of the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge.
On Saturday, volunteers herded the horses through a 15-foot-wide gate in the fence, onto the animals' new 1,800-acre homeland. There, the 11 horses that used to live among tennis courts and swimming pools joined the rest of the wild herd on public and private land stretching to Virginia.
``Used to be, they'd advertise this place as a spot to come see the rare wild horses,'' Barr said. ``Now, everybody's come up here and seen the horses. So the animals all have to go. But isn't that progress?''
Visitors to Corolla on Saturday had mixed feelings about evicting the horses from the oceanfront village.
``They should let them be,'' said Ronnie Adams of Portsmouth. Adams was building an Ocean Hill home when the stallion sped through the construction site. The subcontractor said he looks forward to seeing the horses every day.
``They're so pretty,'' he said. ``Especially that little colt. It'll be like something's missing around here when they're all gone.''
A vacationer from Petersburg, Fred Bergen, agreed that the horses will be missed. But, he added, ``Someone needed to move the horses out of here. It's getting too overcrowded for them to survive.
``I'd rather see the wild animals in a natural setting anyway. People don't understand that these horses aren't tame. The stallions fight and people get in the way and can get hurt.''
Horseback riders and Wild Horse Fund workers corralled the animals all day. Some of the herd meandered 12 miles south of Corolla, to Duck. Others darted across a golf course, leaped frontyard fences and scampered beneath underbrush.
In four-wheel-drive vehicles, volunteers chased the horses and radioed their whereabouts to the riders. The riders herded them toward the beach. Most members of the herd were not very cooperative.
``These horses are as tough as any we've ever messed with,'' Barr said as his buckskin quarter horse, Leroy, stopped for a water break. ``They've got so much terrain they can cover. They know every nook and cranny of this island. They get away in there and hide from you.
``But we'll get them all, eventually.''
When the southern herd is safely corralled north of the fence, volunteers plan to lock the gate across the beach. Vehicles can still drive across a cattle gate. But the specially designed steel structure should keep the horses in their new home.
Wild Horse Fund member Drew Hodges promised that the herd still will be within sight for 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: Color photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
A rider chases a wild horse out of a subdivision in Corolla.
Volunteers herded horses to their new home in Currituck National
Wildlife Refuge.
Map
STAFF
Graphic
WILD HORSES
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
Photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
On Saturday, volunteers herded wild horses through a specially
designed steel fence, which will keep the horses in their new home
at Currituck National Wildlife Refuge.
by CNB