What's a wild pony, anyhow?
How did the ponies of Assateague even get there?
It’s the tail end of July, well north of 90 degrees, and a herd of ponies* is waiting in a pen in the baking sun. Each horse on the left is guided into a chute, and through, one at a time, to a waiting veterinarian and handlers. Foals get labeled in the order in which they were born: 1-72. Anyhorse in need of a closer look—for malnutrition, wounds, or anything else—gets a shot of green spray paint to the rump. After they get their once over, each horse is released into another pen on the other side, where troughs of water and large piles of hay await them to help them while away the wait. On the other side of the fence, hundreds of horse hopefuls watch the proceedings, checking each foal carefully against their images in printed booklets, and taking notes for the upcoming auction.
It’s vet check day at the Chincoteague pony swim in Chincoteague, VA. And this is part 2 of my reporting on the ponies of Assateague. Part 1 is here. Stay tuned for part 3!
The Chincoteague ponies are the Virginia herd of the wild horses that live on the island of Assateague, a long strip of beach, dunes, and grass on the east coast of Maryland and Virginia. About 80 ponies live on the Maryland side, and about 150 on the Virginia side. They are separated by a fence and never the twain shall meet.
The horses have been here as long as anyone can remember. But the modern horse is not native to the United States. So when did they arrive and where did they come from?
The most famous story, made famous by Misty of Chincoteague, is that the horses are the descendants of horses from Spain. The horses were traveling across the Atlantic in a galleon. Maybe it was the 16th century, maybe the 17th. They were bound for, er, well no one knows. A huge storm rose up, the ship sank with all hands, and the brave horses broke their chains. The stallions trumpeted to their mares and came ashore on Assateague. Life would be hard. But they would be free.
There is no direct proof of this. Genetic evidence does link the ponies to the Spanish barb, which is a lineage of horses that are descended from Spanish horses, and were developed in North America. But there’s no shipwreck, no records of lost horse cargo.
The other story is horses ended up on Assateague because local farmers, when the tax collectors came, would round up some of their livestock (especially the more expensive ones), and lead them over to Assateague, hiding them from authorities so they wouldn’t have to pay as much. Over time, some horses would escape from temporary pens, especially if storm happened to come up.
There’s not real direct proof of this either. The evidence in support is that Assateague wasn’t just home to feral horses. It was also home to pigs, a few sheep, some donkeys sometimes. The sort of animals that might, indeed, get left behind.
Shipwreck? Tax evasion? Maybe both?
Over time, the horses bred together and changed. They got shorter and stocky, both the effect of living in a high salt, poor nutrition environment. They have relatively short lifespans in the wild, again due to a pretty tough life. On the upside, there’s not a predator to be seen.
By the time Assateague was divided up into its current series of national and state parks in the 1960s, the horses had plenty of fans. The Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department has been rounding up and selling off the foals on the Virginia side since 1835, and on the Maryland side, they were a tourist draw. So instead of eliminating the invasive species, the horses were designated as a “desirable feral species” in both Maryland and Virginia.
Why are they so desirable, though? What is it about these stocky little ponies that makes people come in their thousands to see them, to bid on the foals, desperate to take home their own?
If you ask Patty Kubus, from Atlanta, GA, it’s because the ponies are the perfect combination of wild and docile. “They’re a challenge.” Kubus had two Chincoteague ponies already, a bay pinto named Tiago and a buckskin named Prescott, and in 2023 they are out for a third.
If you just came to Chincoteague to see the swim, you’d perhaps come away with the idea that a bunch of cowboys gather some wild horses, swim them over, auction them off, and then everything is done. The horses do seem a little bit wild. Swimming over, their ears are laid back. On the shore, stallions nip at each other in the paddock, and foals try to escape the pony parade and go cantering across people’s lawns.
People love the wildness of the Chincoteague pony. The idea that a wild animal, something free, will come to you, will love you. Will choose you.
It’s something that many of us have probably felt, when we feed a feral cat, see a bird on a feeder, or watch TikTok videos of people with hawks, bobcats, or raccoons. There is something special about being chosen, about taking a skittish, fearful wild animal, and making it love you.
But in the case of the Chincoteague ponies, “wild” is more about appearance than reality. The vet visits are actually routine, every pony is rounded up several times per year, to check their health and receive vaccines. The ponies are stalked by human paparazzi, to the point that everyone knows the mother, father, and birthday of every single foal to be auctioned. The swim is done every year, and the horses are at this point used to people, both single mounted riders and fans on foot. The lineage of each pony is carefully tracked, and buy backs are selected to go back and breed on Assateague, with an eye to making sure the gene pool doesn’t become a puddle. Once in a while, Chincoteague ponies that have grown up far from Assateague are brought back to breed, and in the past, people have introduced Arabians and other horse lines.
Much as they are a challenge, Patty Kubus also notes that they are docile. Eager to please. They are great ponies for young riders.
At the vet checks, one foal, worn out by his first visit to the doctor, flops down and takes a nap against a haybale. Other ponies, snacking away, quickly cover the sleeping foal in a light blanket of hay. None of them seem concerned by the hairless hominids taking pictures. Most go easily where they are guided.
Wild but tame. A challenge but easy to please. This dichotomy is even on display in the book Misty of Chincoteague. The book is about a pair of siblings who want to tame the pony named “Phantom.” They get their chance when the mare has a baby, “Misty.” Most of the book is about Phantom—a wild, fast horse, winning races, longing for home, and finally, running back to Assateague. Only the end of the book is about Misty. Unlike her mother, Misty loves people and attention and treats. She’s eager to please. She doesn’t miss her island home at all.
Phantom is wild. Misty is tame. They are both Chincoteague ponies. Yes, the ponies aren’t living on a farm. They aren’t ridden or handled every day. They choose where they go. They choose who they mate with.
But the dating pool is carefully controlled, and the ponies aren’t going far. Most foals are sold far from the island, for trail riding and show. They are swum across every year because they can be tamed, because they can be show horses or pets.
Are they truly wild? Or is what we love the appearance of wildness, a thin veneer of feral over a soft, domesticated heart?
I’m still trying to figure out why we do this. Why we see something wild, and want to make it tame. It’s not specifically a Western idea! Hunter gatherer groups in the Amazon are famous for picking up baby animals out of the forest and making them into pets. I’ve done it myself, feeding feral cats and dragging them into my house.
Maybe it’s about control, the idea that nature is unpredictable, and we can fix it. That nature is threatening, and we can tame it. To have an animal choose you is a success beyond any other.
Maybe it’s about love. We love nature, we want to be around it, but nature can also be cold, and seem like it doesn’t love us back. Isn’t it beautiful to be loved back?
Maybe it’s about freedom. Maybe we feel trapped in our lives, and want to be close to something that is—or was—free from the obligations and cultural pressures, the judgementalness of humans.
Maybe it’s all of them. But so often, the wildness we seek is not real wildness. Real wildness wouldn’t come close enough to tame. What we want is what appears wild, not what actually is.
In part 3, I’ll talk about invasive. Are these ponies invasive? What’s a desirable feral species anyway? Stay tuned.
Where have you been?
Is it reading about wild turkeys and how their sassy strutting around suburbs is actually a conservation SUCCESS? Thanks so much to Richard Fisher for the shoutout at the BBC!
Maybe it’s reading about what would happen if all the rats in NYC died tomorrow. Spoiler: Not much. They live off us, but sewage would not exactly pile up in the streets.
Maybe it’s reading about how science writers cover psychology research, and whether they can tell a quality study from a bad one! Luckily, it turns out they mostly can tell when a study is crap. Thank goodness because I was in this study and wow would I have egg on my face were it otherwise.
Or maybe it’s about Zepbound, and why the HECK new drugs end up with weird ass names like “zepbound.”
Where have I been?
First, I was so honored to give the keynote this year at the Virginia Association of Science Teachers conference this year! I was especially thrilled to see not one, but TWO of my science teachers, still at it, 20 years later. They gave so much to me and I was so happy to finally be able to give just a little bit back.
Second, I was happy to have Kate Clancy on the podcast to talk about her book Period! The past, the present, and the future of menstruation. There will be blood.
*The difference between ponies and horses is a matter of size. Anything below 14.2 hands (a hand is about four inches, the rough length of the palm of your hand) is officially a pony. But then of course some Arabian horses are around 14.1 hands and are still horses, and then mini horses which are definitely below 14.2 hands are horses not ponies. Potato potahto. Ponyto Horstahto.