You say native, I say invasive
What makes a pony belong? It's the economy, stupid.
It’s the day of the Chincoteague pony swim in late July, and people have been waiting on the shores of Chincoteague since daybreak, staking out the best spots to watch. Some set up in a park nearby, others brave the sticky marsh mud next to the main pier. Well, okay, the adults brave the mud. The kids enjoy the mud to the absolute utmost. Medical personnel come in to assist over and over, as muddy bare toes slip and slide and encounter sharp shells, rocks, and occasional fiddler crabs.
Finally, around 10am, smoke billows up from a boat in the center of the channel between Assateague and Chincoteague. It’s slack tide, with no major currents, and the swim can begin. A huge roar goes up, as 50,000 people strain to watch less than 150 ponies trot, and then canter, over the marsh and plunge into the water.
Welcome to part 3 of my reporting on the ponies of Assateague! Part 1 and part 2 are available at the links. In the spring, the main bulk of my reporting will appear in the spring issue of Sierra Magazine, and I can’t wait for you all to see it! The editors kindly let me plonk the rest of my reporting here, since I had just THAT much to say.
These ponies roam freely most of the year in a wildlife refuge.
Are the ponies wildlife? People love the idea that they are wild. But they are also definitely feral domesticated animals. They can relatively easily be tamed, broken to saddle, and end up in shows. Their temperament is described as easy to please. Wildlife they are not.
Are the ponies native? Definitely not. No one knows how they arrived exactly, but they are certainly a product of European colonization. And most people who accept the idea of invasive species vs native species, would say that European colonizers are not native to North America. Their ponies aren’t either.
So are the ponies invasive? If they are, why are they still allowed?
An invasive species is usually defined as a species not native to an ecosystem and causing harm to that ecosystem. Often they are seen as breeding too much, or preying on something values in the ecosystem. As I like to say, “invasive species” is a pest with scientific backing.
The ponies aren’t native. Are they harmful? Ponies have been running up and down Assateague for generations now. The Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company has been rounding them up and selling off adults and foals officially since 1925. They formally purchased the Virginia herd in 1943 from the Fish and Wildlife Service, when the government agency began to work on the island in an effort to increase wildfowl. The ponies were a blessing to the fire company. Their auction raised money for equipment and personnel, and the rest of the time, they’re basically free, wandering on their own, feeding themselves.
But the wildfowl project put the government a bit at odds with the ponies. The government wants to preserve grassy marshland, full of grass that ponies want to eat. fencing off the marshland fences away the ponies. Where ponies graze, they can cause erosion and changes in the soil and plants.
If you value the marshland (and the birds in it) then, this is environmental harm. The ponies also were breeding to the point that they were overgrazing. Which fills both the environmental harm and the overbreeding aspect of “invasive species.”
This conflict came to a head in the 1960s, when Assateague Island got divided up into a series of state parks, national seashores, wildlife refuges, and more. The wildlife refuge, in particular, was a sticking point. By law, a wildlife refuge is for the conservation of native species. Non native species, aka the ponies, are antithetical to that goal, particularly if they are directly harming the ecosystem. If the government wants a Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, there should not be ponies in it.
Obviously, the ponies remain.
What saved them? On the one hand, you could say it was people’s love. On the other, you could say it was their money.
In theory, I suppose, the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company could have taken the horses and grazed them elsewhere (not ON Chincoteague, I cannot stress how tiny that island is and how full it is of humans). But that would be completely counter to what the ponies are, and to what people believe about them. They aren’t just domesticated horses. They are “wild.” Wild island ponies that need to be seen running free.
This isn’t just because we as humans love to see it. As I’ve mentioned previously, these foals sell for thousands of dollars. Some of them sell for tens of thousands. That money goes to the volunteer fire department, and pays for the pony’s vet, the time rounding them up, the fair and the auction, and of course, firefighting equipment.
But it’s not remotely all the money these ponies bring in. Those 50,000 people standing on the shore? They stayed, most of them, on Chincoteague. They ate on Chincoteague. They bought books about the ponies, paid for the fair, bought pony merch. Misty of Chincoteague the book created a movie and a museum. Rather like Twilight did to Forks, Washington, with fewer troubling gender stereotypes. The Chincoteague Pony Swim supports not just Chincoteague but the entire surrounding area.
This is true on the Maryland side as well. People come to visit the National Seashore and the state park not just for the beach, but to be on the beach with WILD PONIES. Tourism is a vital part of the economy.
In the end, the people of Chincoteague (and people on the Maryland side) went and pled with Congress for an exception. They talked about how the ponies had been here so long they totally were basically native right? Totally. And they talked about how they were a vital cultural (and economic) engine of the area.
The ponies are now a “desirable feral species” in both states, and the fire company has a permit to graze them in the refuge (though arguments still break out about fence placement).
I love the phrase “desirable feral species” so much. Because it says in plain language what these ponies are really about. They are not about which species belong where, or what harm they might do or not do.
They’re about what people want. What we want to see, what we want to believe is wild and free. They’re about what we love. And they’re about money.
I cover a lot more about this in my book (which by the way got into the NYT as one of 6 paperback books to read this week so please do buy it for all your holiday shopping needs!). But this is what the Assateague ponies really highlighted to me. They showed me how what we decide is wild and free is about our perception, about our desires to see free things, and to own them. And how our love for something determines where it belongs.
Where have you been?
Is it reading this important open letter to the owners of Substack about how promoting and platforming far right people is BAD? Because it is bad. I know many wonderful progressive writers on Substack. Many trans writers, body neutrality writers, writers of color and Jewish writers. Why then is Substack giving so much clout to, er, Nazis? Can we not?
Maybe it’s reading about the harms of cats. Which are not picky eaters and that is a problem.
Maybe it’s about the fall of Twitter, and how much it could be used for both good actions…and very very bad ones?
Maybe it’s about how de-extinction isn’t about saving species for their own book. It’s about making us feel good about ourselves.
Where have I been?
Well I’m delighted to say that Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains, is out in PAPERBACK! Just in time for the holidays, and I’ve been told people use paperback books as stocking stuffers now so maybe you could get it for that? Anyway yay it’s cheaper!
And it was picked as one of the New York Times 6 paperback books to read this week! I’m in some very fine company too.
In another group of fantastic authors I’m on the 2023 Science Friday book list! This was SUCH a lovely interview.
You may have heard that my podcast, Science for the People, is ending, after a near 15 year run. We are NOT neglecting you, however! We have our end of year science book episode up now and gifts are happening soon!