The Atlantic Wild Horse Trail
​The Wild Horses of Cedar Island, NC

​ Cedar Island, across the sound from Core Banks, is a small community located at the southern terminus of a state ferry to Ocracoke. It is also home to a small, little-known herd of wild horses. Although Cedar Island NWR (a low-profile operation with no resident staff) takes up more than half the island, the horses live on private land. A series of low islands and marshes owned by longtime residents has functioned for years as a wild horse sanctuary. The range lies east of the ferry dock and extends for about 8 mi/13 km, in a swath about 2 mi/3.2 km wide. Sponenberg (2011) writes that the original Cedar Island herd comprised horses taken from Core Banks, “which were supplemented by a later addition of Ocracoke horses.”

For more than a century, perhaps much longer, herds of 100–200 bays, chestnuts, buckskins, and blacks lived wild in these marshes, sharing the abundant forage with other wildlife and with cagey feral cattle that charged when surprised. After helping the Park Service euthanize nearly half the Shackleford herd in unseemly haste, the Veterinary Division of the N.C. Department of Agriculture turned its attention to the few wild horses left on Cedar Island and nearly eradicated them as well. “Local people used to round up the horses every 4th of July,” says Nena Hancock, who manages the Cedar Island herd with her husband, Woody. “Many people came to help and to watch. Some of the horses were branded by their owners during the roundups and others were sold” (personal communication, March 9, 2011). Locals attest that horses have roamed Cedar Island for more than a century, their numbers augmented in 1958 by a group of horses removed from Portsmouth Island. A 1958 Associated Press article documented the translocation: "Those shaggy wild things called Banker ponies which roam this off-shore North Carolina island, will get their annual penning-up next Friday. The island animals are a herd of the famed outer banks ponies. In previous years some of them have been sold to private owners after the annual roundup, but few of them will be sold this year. The Cedar Island Banker Pony Assn. which looks after them, said plans are to build up the herd. The pony herd was moved to Cedar Island, 12 miles east of Atlantic from Portsmouth Island several months ago. The transfer was ordered by the 1957 General Assembly in an effort to halt beach erosion." (“Round-Up Slated for Banker Ponies,” 1958, p. 10B)

In 1996, a number of domestic horses at White Sands Stables, a Cedar Island riding and boarding facility,  contracted equine infectious anemia (EIA). The disease  spread rapidly to the wild herd in the Cedar Island marshes, and 13 of the 15 wild horses were euthanized as positive testers. Herd managers Nena and Woody Hancock, and fellow islander Clyde Styron established a wild horse sanctuary on private land and introduced genetically similar horses from Shackleford Banks to replace those that had been euthanized. 

In 2019, the herd suffered another setback. A shift in the wind from Hurricane Dorian caused an 8 foot storm surge to develop over the course of an hour, and 28 members of the 49-horse herd were drowned. Only 21 members of the herd survived, 13 mares and eight geldings. 
Three of the Cedar Island wild cattle were swept into the sound and were later found alive and healthy miles away at Core Banks. 

The Cedar Island wild horse herd remains resilient.  Leroy, a  gray stallion born on Cedar Island Beach the spring of 2015,  had been removed from the herd as a yearling. He has been reintroduced to ensure the survival of the wild herd and to keep it true to its original bloodlines.  With the diligent management of concerned residents, the Cedar Island herd has been resurrected and will continue to roam free over their historic homelands.

Respect free-roaming horses as wildlife. Keep at least the length of a large bus between you and the horses at all times, and try not to disrupt their behavior with your presence.

Respect free-roaming horses as wildlife. Keep at least the length of a large bus between you and the horses at all times, and try not to disrupt their behavior with your presence.

Learn more!
Books by Bonnie Gruenberg

The Wild Horse Dilemma: Conflicts and Controversies of the Atlantic Coast herds

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Hoofprints Guides:
​Shackleford Banks and Vicinity

Cedar Island Links
Facebook: The wild horses of Cedar Island
​Article: Managers to rebuild wild herd