Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 3, 1994 TAG: 9404030102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: COROLLA, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
Two miles north of Corolla's multimillion-dollar beach houses, the only paved road on the northern Outer Banks ends abruptly in a sand dune.
Between the dead end and the Virginia border, federal wildlife managers oversee most of the narrow 15-mile-long peninsula, where year-round residents barely outnumber an elusive herd of from 25 to 100 wild horses.
"There is a direct conflict between feral horses and the birds on these refuges," said U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service spokesman Ken Merritt, who manages the Mackay Island and Currituck national wildlife refuges on the northern Outer Banks.
"The horses we already have graze the waterfowl food down to where it looks like a golf green," Merritt said. "Any more horses in that area could destroy the food sources completely."
To the south, a better-known band of horses grazes on freshly sodded lawns in Corolla, where at least 15 members of the herd have died in vehicular collisions since 1989.
To protect the roughly 22 remaining horses, members of the nonprofit Corolla Wild Horse Fund want to relocate them to the 1,800 government-controlled acres north of Corolla and south of Sandbridge.
In October, fund members announced plans to build a nearly mile-long fence across the point where the road ends to keep the Corolla herd north of the booming resort town.
North Carolina coastal regulators approved the project March 26.
However, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must approve the proposal before the animal advocates can build the fence and move the herd.
Federal wildlife officials have told the corps they oppose taking habitat away from the endangered plants and animals that already live on the wildlife reserve, The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star reported.
In a three-page letter to the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Supervisor L.K. "Mike" Gantt said the horses would harm habitat and food sources for coquina clams, mole crabs, black ducks, mallards, tundra swans, snow geese, endangered piping plovers and dozens of other species.
The horses also would trample sand dunes and endangered plants such as the seabeach amaranth, Gantt wrote.
Merritt said the refuge was not established with horses in mind.
"Congress established this refuge for waterfowl and shorebirds," he said. "There was no mention of horses."
The horses have lived in harmony with barrier island ducks and shorebirds for more than four centuries. But humans increasingly have encroached on their habitat.
Now, Merritt said, it's a choice between birds and horses.
"Just because the horses were introduced 400 years ago doesn't mean they have a place in the native wildlife ecosystem," he said.
Corolla Wild Horse Fund Director Rowena Dorman still hopes to gain federal permission for the plan, but has moved the target date for fence-building from this weekend to mid-summer.
"We need them to understand that there's nowhere else for the horses to go," she said.
by CNB