New N.C. law designed to keep visitors, wild horses safe

COROLLA, N.C.

Early last month, two young boys walked up to a black stallion watching over his harem of Corolla wild horses and began patting him on the rear.

Their mother sat on a sand dune nearby, apparently unconcerned, but Kimberlee Hoey, a volunteer with the wild horse sanctuary patrol, quickly approached and asked the boys to slowly back away.

"You wonder what people are thinking," Hoey said. "He could have kicked them and killed them."

To stem dangerous encounters, Currituck County amended an ordinance Monday to make it illegal to intentionally come within 50 feet of a wild horse. Before the change, it was illegal to lure a wild horse to within 50 feet. But luring was tough to prove in court, said Ike McRee, Currituck County attorney.

Incidents of tourists interacting dangerously with Corolla wild horses have been steadily increasing, said Hoey, who is also president of the board of directors for the Corolla Wild Horse Fund.

Within the past two weeks, Hoey has seen a mother and father try to put their child on the back of a wild horse and take a photograph.

A woman inserted herself in the middle of a small harem of mares and continued to walk with them as they moved along the beach.

A group from a rental cottage left the porch with cameras to get close-ups of wild horses, prompting a stallion to charge from a nearby sand dune. The family rushed back, barely making it to the safety of the porch.

Monday's amendment will allow Currituck officers to issue a citation like a parking ticket instead of having to make an arrest, McRee said. Maximum fines are $500, he said.

Some wild horses associate humans with food and allow close contact, but like any wild animal they are unpredictable, said Karen McCalpin, director of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund. Wild horses also are in danger of getting colic, a potentially fatal condition that can be caused by introducing foods such as carrots and apples into their diets, she said.

Descended from Spanish mustangs, the Corolla wild horses are among the most popular tourist attractions on the Outer Banks.

At times, small groups leave the maritime forests and cross the dunes to the beach, drawing large crowds of people. Brisk sales of T-shirts and hats help pay for management.

Formed in 1989, the Corolla Wild Horse Fund helps manage and watch over the herd. After 15 horses were killed on local roads in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the group built a fence, completed in 1995, from the ocean to the Currituck Sound to keep the herd out of Corolla and in the four-wheel-drive area.

In 2003, another fence was built on the north end of the four-wheel-drive area on the Virginia line to keep the horses out of Virginia Beach.

Some horses still were able to get around the fence, often clashing with visitors as they roamed posh neighborhoods.

Some of the more famous horses, such as Little Red Man, had to be moved to an island in the Currituck Sound.

Hundreds of tourists rent beach homes during the summer in the four-wheel-drive area.

Realty companies attempt to educate visitors about wild horse etiquette but not everybody gets the word or heeds it, McCalpin said.

The voluntary sanctuary patrol works in shifts to teach tourists about wild horse safety, she said.

"We want people to be able to coexist with the horses," she said.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, jeff.hampton@pilotonline.com