Wild Horses of Shackleford Banks

By Carmine Prioli and Scott Taylor

• Updated edition of a longtime NC coastal favorite about the mysterious and somewhat controversial wild horses of Shackleford Banks.
• A new foreword commemorates the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the cooperative management program protecting the horses.
• Proceeds from the book benefit the Foundation for Shackleford Horses, Inc.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blair
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9781958888322

Carmine Prioli

Carmine Prioli was born and raised in Boston. He received his B.A. from Suffolk University in 1968, his master’s from Boston College in 1971, and his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1975, all in English. Prioli moved to North Carolina in 1977 to teach at North Carolina State University. From 2003 to 2005, he edited the North Carolina Folklore Journal. He is the author of Hope for a Good Season: The Ca’e Bankers of Harkers Island and editor of The Poems of General George S. Patton, Jr.: Lines of Fire. He also coedited Life at the Edge of the Sea: Essays on North Carolina’s Coast and Coastal Culture with Candy Beal. Presently, Prioli is an English professor and the director of graduate programs in the English Department at North Carolina State. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife of twenty-nine years, Elizabeth, and has two sons, John and Andrew. 

Book preview

Cover: The wild horses of Shackleford Banks by Carmine Prioli

BOOKS BY CARMINE PRIOLI

Lines of Fire:The Poems of Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. (1991)

Hope for a Good Season:The Ca’e Bankers of Harkers Island (1998)

Life at the Edge of the Sea: Essays on North Carolina’s Coast and Coastal Culture, with Candy Beal (2002)

BOOKS WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY SCOTT TAYLOR

Seashells of North Carolina,by Hugh J. Porter and Lynn Houser and edited by Jeannie Faris Norris (1999)

Coastal Waters: Images of North Carolina, by Scott Taylor (2000)

Song of an Unsung Place: Living Traditions by the Pamlico Sound, by Bill Mansfield (2001)

Mariner’s Menu: 30 Years of Fresh Seafood Ideas, by Joyce Taylor (2003)

Copyright © 2007 by Carmine Prioli and Scott Taylor

All rights reserved under

International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions

Printed in the United States

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS BOOK ARE BY SCOTT TAYLOR.

A portion of the proceeds from The Wild Horses of Shackleford Banks will be contributed to the Foundation for Shackleford Horses, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Prioli, Carmine.

The wild horses of Shackleford Banks / by Carmine Prioli and Scott Taylor.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-0-89587-334-7 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10: 0-89587-334-6

1. Wild horses—North Carolina—Shackleford Banks. 2. Wild horses—Ecology—North Carolina—Shackleford Banks. I. Taylor, Scott (Scott David) II. Title.

SF360.3.U6P75 2007

599.665’509756197—dc22 2006027513

For Elizabeth

Sophia (left) and Diego, 2004

Heloise

CONTENTS

Preface

1No one, except Marilyn, expected MissIsabel.

2The ancestors of Jennifer, Jupiter, and the rest were war horses.

3The Land of Ayllón … He died here of disease.

4Besides this Island, there are many [others] … replenished with Deere, Conies, Hares and divers beastes.

5Their corne began to wither by reason of a drouth.

6They were the horses we rode as children, and the horses our children rode.

7We do not want Congress telling us we must manage the horses.

8We do not want Congress telling us we must manage the horses.

9Their tenacity of existence is heroic.

10Leo’s good therapy for me!

Acknowledgments

Appendix Adopted Horses/Shackleford Horses and Foals in the Cedar Island Herd

Notes

Sources

Index

PREFACE

When The Wild Horses of Shackleford Banks was first published in 2007, its objective was to document, as best as possible in words and photographs, the history of the storied and beloved horses that have lived on Shackleford Banks for several hundred years. It also set out to offer the scientific evidence indicating their colonial Spanish ancestry and to describe the controversies and confrontations that ultimately led to the passage of H.R. 765, the 1998 landmark federal legislation known as the Shackleford Banks Wild Horses Protection Act. In addition, we wanted to provide a gallery of contemporary images showing the wild horses in their island habitat and the horses who were adopted (for population control), along with their human companions.

With a few minor editorial changes, the text and images offered in this edition remain the same as those that appeared in 2007. The purpose of this preface is to bring the reader and potential visitors to Shackleford Banks up to date on some issues of interest, importance, and safety to themselves and to the horses that continue to thrive in their wilderness environment. It is our hope that this book will highlight and enhance the ongoing efforts of the National Park Service (NPS) and the Foundation for Shackleford Horses, Inc. (FSH), to educate the public about the Shackleford Banks horses and, in turn, help preserve the herd for future generations.

When the NPS and the FSH began cooperative management of the horses in 1998, the process included a combination of strategies that required removal of selected horses and initiation of a mare contraception program. The amended 2005 legislation called for a herd of not less than 110 free roaming horses, with a target population of between 120 and 130 free roaming horses. Since the last (and what is expected to be final) roundup in 2005 when eighteen horses were removed to reduce the herd’s overall number, there have been a few more selective removals for population control reasons. At the time of this writing, only contraception is used to moderate the population.With small fluctuations, the annual average herd mortality of 6 percent (1990–2021) is being counterbalanced by births.

At this time and for the past few years, the NPS has practiced a program they call adaptive management. No roundups are planned for the future, and darting mares for contraception is evaluated on an annual basis. In 2022 eight of the mares who had recently foaled were contracepted, allowing other mares to give birth. A study of the genetic status of the herd was made in 1997, and an update was made in 2019, which was completed in 2022. The study found that there is a declining trend in herd variability, but it is not statistically nor biologically significant. The study concluded, The herd is not significantly inbred. (Shackleford Banks Wild Horse Herd: Re-Anaylsis and Direction, Final Report, June 17, 2022). The scientific mapping of the familial relationships of the entire herd resembles nothing less than a genetic symphony orchestrated by Dr. Sue Stuska, Cape Lookout’s resident wildlife biologist.

The NPS and FSH continue to monitor external challenges to the horses’ future. One threat, of course, is climate change. Shackleford Banks has always been a bulwark against monster storms of the past, where the wild horses hunkered down and survived. But just in the last few years, the island has experienced a loss to erosion of nearly a mile of its nine-mile length. Inevitably this erosion of its western end has altered areas of habitat, including fresh water sources that a portion of the herd relies on. So far, the horses have adapted in much the same ways that the Banks themselves have adapted to changing conditions for millennia.

What is currently the greatest challenge to the horses’ well-being is not climate change. That threat is visitors. More specifically, it is visitors with their unleashed dogs and those eager to pose with and take selfies of themselves with the horses. It is the allure of the horses, their beauty and their embodiment of bedrock American values (self-reliance, freedom, and so on), that draws visitors to them at times—potentially at the visitors’ peril and, increasingly, at a cost to the horses’ natural and social dynamics. Social media has publicized the horses as never before, attracting visitors from all fifty states and many distant countries. In its advertising brochure, one ferry service urges tourists to SEE THE FAMOUS WILD HORSES RUNNING FREE! With 542,000 visitors coming to Cape Lookout National Seashore in 2022—spending an estimated $26,800,000 in local communities—it is unlikely that the growing tide of visitors will ebb any time soon.

In an effort that can only be described as heroic, the NPS and FSH have developed a number of initiatives geared toward increasing public awareness. One of these initiatives is the Wild Horse Public Education Campaign (WHPEC). Begun in 2011, WHPEC is a collaboration among Cape Lookout National Seashore, the Foundation for Shackleford Horses, and the nearby Rachel Carson Reserve. As described in the 2022 NPS annual report, The aim of the campaign is to educate people about the horses with an emphasis on safety of the horses, park/ Reserve visitors, and pets.The general message is to watch the horses without interacting with them or interrupting their natural behavior. While it’s difficult to determine how successful these efforts to prevent visitor-horse interaction have been, there have been no reports of human injuries resulting from horse contact. (A wild horse can deliver a deadly kick from a standstill position in 0.3 seconds.) But that does not mean these injuries haven’t occurred. Anyone reporting a horse-related injury to themselves would thereby be admitting guilt, which could result in a citation or fine.

Additional NPS initiatives include the Junior Ranger Wild Horse Protector Program, designed for students in grades 6 to 8, and the Horse Sense and Survival tours, led by Dr. Stuska. Hashtags like #WildHorseRules and #HorseProtectionDay are useful sources of information. Several years ago, the NPS, the FSH, and North Carolina State University teamed up to produce a compendium of lesson plans for teachers wanting to introduce their students to the manifold subjects related to the wild horses, embracing everything from genetics to social and cultural history (see the website calohorse.wordpress.ncsu.edu). The most recent and promising initiative is the Pony Patrol. Begun in 2022 and modeled after a similar initiative at Maryland’s Assateague Island National Seashore, the Pony Patrol trains volunteers in teams of two, wearing yellow vests identifying them, to roam Shackleford in four-hour shifts as observers (not law enforcement).They offer advice about the horses to visitors, monitor horse welfare and behavior, and report violations of NPS rules when they occur.

Subtler attempts to educate the public about the horses—or at least modify the public’s perception of them—are also gaining some traction. For example, there is an inclination toward not sharing the names of the horses with visitors or with the public in general. All of the horses are given numbers so that they can be identified and managed appropriately. As has been the practice for many years, they are also given names, which also assists with identification. But those names, like Sadie, Darcy, Kirk, and Miss Isabel, tend to personalize the horses, tempting visitors to see them not as the wild creatures they are, but more like pets. And that temptation can lead to unpleasant consequences for both the visitors and the horses if they become habituated to close human contact. Habituated wildlife loses its healthy fear of people and allows the wildlife to get closer to (sometimes unsuspecting) visitors and potentially injure them. Of course, this can also set up situations where people could harm the wildlife.