Wild Horses Reappear After Months In Hiding Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just got finished reading an article in my morning newspaper that featured a photograph of Rotor the horse and her offspring Dash who made a rare appearance on the Outer Banks recently.

Rotor and Dash

Story began with....A ghost of sorts appeared on the northern end of North Carolina's Outer Banks - a wild stallion that goes by the name Dash.  The elusive horse came out of nowhere August 14 with his equally mysterious mom, Rotor, confirming a lesser-known fact about the feral "banker" horses that live on Corolla.  There are a handful of horses that we are lucky to see once or twice a year because they live deep in the marsh in places that are difficult to access.  The horses have about 7,500 acres of land to roam and...it is quite vast once you get away from the ocean-front.  Easy for a couple of horses to stay hidden for months at a time!  That's unexpected, given the Outer Banks are becoming increasingly crowded as an East Caost tourist destination.  It's estimated over 5 million people a year visit the Outer Banks which includes about 2.8 million drawn to the beaches and historic attractions at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in 2023.  A heard of just over 100 wild horses roam the Corolla area, including some that have managed to stay hidden for years.  In 2023, the Corolla Wild Horse Fund announced a secretive family of horses...two adults and a foal...was discovered living like castaways on an island in the sound west of Carova Beach.  "We always assume there are probably a handful more that we never see," the fund wrote.  It isn't completely understood why some hermit horses suddenly show up on beaches, then just as suddenly disappear.  Puckett says it could have to do with the disease-carrying horse flies that plague the islands when conditions are damp and hot.  There comes a point when the most stoic of wild horses can no longer stand the biting and head for beaches where coastal winds thwart the insects.  That's likely what caused Dash and his mom to materialize August 14, Puckett said.  I'm not really sure why there are some that don't come out of the marsh and woods very often, when the majority of them do go back and forth pretty regularly," she said.  "Probably just behavior that has been passed down from many generations.  I'd say there are maybe around 10 to 15 that only come out around the houses and onto the beach a couple times a year, and maybe half of those are even more elusive and we're lucky to see them once a year."  Their disappearing acts prove a lot of wild habitat still exists on North Carolina's barrier island, and the horses use it, she said.  Either by instinct or by trial and error, they know how to find secret places that are too remote and too wet for humans.  "Development is definitely a huge issue and presents a lot of dangers to the horses.  Development doesn't just mean houses going up and loss of habitat.  It also means traffic, garbage, more septic systems and wells going in, more people in general, etc," Puckett said.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.