![]() So, even if the beach is beautiful and wild (and not littered! I could not find one piece of trash on it!!), we won’t be back. (excerpt from here ).Īnd it has to stay that way. Regardless, today the horses are wild and, for the most part, left to fend for themselves. Another theory is that during colonial times, residents on the mainland brought horses to graze on the island to avoid taxation on animals living on the mainland. Domesticated horses could have swam ashore from sinking ships or could have been thrown off of ships that had run aground in an attempt to lighten and refloat the ship. Though nobody knows for sure how they got there, it is certain that they were not originally wild. Horses have been on Assateague Island for over 300 years. ![]() Unfortunately, people are not scared of horses like they are of bears, so they just leave food outside unattended even if this is a very clear rule. Like bears, if the horses get used to humans feeding them, they will tear into the tents to get food, raid picnic tables, and even push people out of the way to get to the food sources. One died last year after being fed commercial dog food… Many get hit by cars because they associate vehicles with food. Of course they behave like this because people feed them to take pictures with them or try to pet them. They reminded me more of giant raccoons than the Camargue horses of the animal channel of my youth… I know I might be a hopeless romantic, but when I hear « camping on an island where wild horses roam free », I have images of the white Camargue horses galloping free in harmony on the beach… Maybe that’s why I was surprised to see pissed off horses stealing bags of chips from campsites and being aggressive with dogs and people. ![]()
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