Wild horses in a NPS site in Georgia? That may come as a surprise, but they've been in the area for centuries. The annual census of wild horses at Cumberland Island National Seashore has just been completed. How's the park's population of untamed equines doing these days?
Cumberland Island National Seashore, on the Georgia coast, includes one of the largest undeveloped barrier islands in the world. The park is also home to one of the largest maritime forests remaining in the United States, one of the largest wilderness areas in a National Seashore on the east coast, and a herd of feral, free-ranging horses.
So, how do you count wild horses in such an area? You rely on a group of dedicated volunteers.
According to the park,
The volunteer group consists of members who typically participate each year and know the census protocol and routes, which adds consistency and validity to the results. One volunteer has participated for over 10 years. A total of 20 routes are surveyed during the two-day period. Data collected includes the number of horses seen, sex, age class, location, and habitat. Information is stored in a database for comparison to previous years.
Thirty volunteers participated in this year’s census and counted 121 horses. Over the previous 11 years, the census totals have ranged from a low of 120 to a high of 154. While it is not possible to count every horse on the island, the numbers can be used primarily as an index to abundance.
Since there is consistency in the time of year of the census, tidal conditions, routes, survey times, and participants, the data generated can be considered an accurate portrayal of long-term trends in the population. For those wanting a total number of horses on the island, another 50 or so horses could probably be added to the number generated by the census to get a closer estimate.
The presence of horses on Cumberland Island can be traced back to the 1700s, although it's believed the animals likely occurred in the area even earlier, during the Spanish missionary period in the 1500s. The current herd has a genetic makeup closely related to several breeds of common domestic horses, which is likely the result of post-1900 introductions of other animals to the island.
Monitoring of the herd by the park began in 1981, and the staff plans to continue the annual census and increase research to "evaluate horse-related impacts on the numerous island vegetative communities."
Visitors are reminded these are feral horses and should be treated as wild animals. Since these are free-ranging animals, it's not possible to accurately predict their location, but if you're in the park and hope to see some of the horses, the park notes they can often be seen around the Dungeness ruins area.
The park website includes information to help you plan a visit to Cumberland Island, including a map and directions to the area.
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Comments
Your concerns are appreciated,
but let's take a step back and look at the big picture.
Horses were endemic to North America, though they apparantly disappeard from the fossil record before modern times. However, "Absence of evidense is not evidence of absence."
In the 1970s, someone researched, the number of horses imported from Europe on sailing ships, counted the number of mares, geldings (castrated stallions), and stallions-
estimating where actual numbers were not available - then calculated the reproductive rate of the horses, factoring in the percentage that got loose or were turned loose
-at a time when horses were the sole means of relatively fast transportation, and essential for conquest, exploration, and settlements.
Horses that were severely injured, or died in battle, were not wasted and allowed to rot- but the meat, a regular part of the human diet since anatoically moderen humans existed
(or, in some regions, their close relative- zebra and the asses), so similar to beef that it has often been sold as beef.
Even the meat from older horses was used for it's valuable nutrients in stews, or fed to dogs. There was no kibble.
No doubt some escaped or were turned loose, but even old or injured, even sick animals were not wasted -but their carcasses were recycled.
For leather, glue, bone marrow, bone meal (as mills were established) - and dog food. So even horses no long useful for riding, driving, or plowing
were rarely turned loose. Even in death, they were esential to the survival of early explorers and settlers.
Yet from the small percent of fertile (not geldings) horses that did get loose, these slowly reporducing animals* allegedly became the millions of wild horses found in North America in the 1800s,
in a relatively short period of time. *Thorooughbred racehorses, with no expense spared, have a total live foal average (per mare bred) that hovers under 60%.
Feral horses had to deal with winter, summer drought, predators, and other hazards- diminishing their numbers, and adversly affecting their fertility, and the survival of their foals.
The original range of indegenous wild horses in North america's pre-history may not have been present on Atlantic coastal islands. Yet even feral horses can be functional analogs
in the ecosystem to ungulate (rougly, hooved) herbiovores that were present there in te 1600s, but are now gone - filling the same function in the ecology.
Bison, for example, were part of the ecology from the Atlantic seaboard almost to the Pacific - wood bison in most eastern areas; not the smaller plains bison.
Elk is another species once plentiful on the Estern Seaboard that many people think only ever existed in or near the Rocky Mountains.
Grazing ungulate herbivores stimulate plant growth, especially grasses that are critically important for stabliizing soils and sands from wind, rain, and wave erosion.
Ask any gardener about the benefits of pruming. Grazing is a far more beneficial method of 'moving' and renewing grasses than mechanical mowing.
Their manure is excellent for building soil, and the uriine provides both nutrients and essentail moisture to plants in dry climates, and during droughts.
It might be true that the horses were not anoriginal part of the ecology on this island. Yet they are 100% organic and biodegradeable.
Plastics and other synthetic chemical compounds are far more damaging to any ecosystem than wild or feral horses.