Drum roll please…the new foal’s name is Mateo! We love it. Finn was a close second. Thanks to everyone who participated in the naming contest. Several people submitted Mateo so we drew names out of a hat and the grand prize winner has been notified. (Photo credit: Coastal Extreme Photography)
The Winter 2016 Newsletter is available to view online.
It’s like a special, miniature Faire Days Festival Event this Wednesday, September 9th from 2-5pm at the Wild Horse Museum Store in Scarborough Faire Shopping Village in Duck NC.
“Meet A Mustang!” and make a donation to preserve and protect the wild horses
“Paint A Mustang” wooden cutout in sizes $5-$15
“Glitter Tattoos” that last for days $3.50
“Wine Tastings” locally made Wild Pony White and Shipwreck and Plank Reds from Sanctuary Vineyards, plus Wild Horse Chardonnay and Merlot from California’s Central Coast.
ALL proceeds from your purchase of these wines and all merchandise at the store benefit the wild Colonial Spanish Mustangs!
Each year thousands of visitors from all over the country head to the northern beaches of Currituck County to see the wild horses. If you are one of the many amateur photographers with pictures of the Corolla Wild horses, you are eligible to enter them in our Annual Photo Contest!
Finalists will be selected by a panel of three independent judges, and the winners will be published in our 2017 calendar.
Join us for a wine tasting on Wednesday September 10 from 1-4:30 at our locations in Scarborough Faire in Duck or the Museum store in Corolla. You can sample local NC wine Wild Pony White and Wild Horse Merlot or Chardonnay from California.
It’s a great event for the mid-week and best of all… any purchase you make at either location will directly benefit the critically endangered Colonial Spanish Mustangs on the northern beaches of Currituck county. Hope to see you there!
Mark your calendars for Friday October 10th and Saturday October 11th and join us for the 4th annual Music Mustang Festival!
Mike Dianna is going all out this year by bringing this music extravaganza to the Whalehead in Historic Corolla. There are expanded activities for families, horses and of course award winning music. Please click here for all of the information, proceeds benefit the Corolla Wild Horse Fund. We can’t thank Mike Dianna enough for his efforts to preserve our treasured Colonial Spanish Mustangs, he is indeed one of our local treasures.
If you answered Yes! to these questions, the annual CWHF Calendar Contest is for you!
Winning images will be selected by a panel of independent judges, and the winners will be published in our 2016 calendar. Proceeds from the sale of the calendar support the CWHF mission to protect and preserve the wild Colonial Spanish Mustangs and the land on which they live.
The 2016 calendar contest is held now so that it can be available for purchase early in 2015. Every year our calendar becomes more an more popular, and every year we have more and more printed. Plan now to have your photography in the next calendar!
The Entry Form must be submitted with your image files. Submissions must be postmarked between May 1, 2014 and August 31, 2014. Click here to download the 2016 Calendar Contest Rules and Entry Form.
With nearly one hundred submissions to the 2015 calendar contest, selecting the final thirteen images for the 2015 calendar was an arduous task. All of the submitted photographs are beautiful, and were taken and submitted by people who undoubtedly care about these wild Colonial Spanish Mustangs. Three regional artists judged this years submissions, and final selections were based on several criteria, including photographic excellence, variety of setting, and variety of horse groupings and behaviors. Click the link to see the final selections: 2015 CWHF Calendar Contest Winning Photographs and Photographers.
Today is my birthday. Let’s just say I’m old enough to be getting membership requests from AARP. It is said that with age comes wisdom but the older I get, the less I understand why it is so hard and sometimes impossible for some people to do the right thing.
The Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act mandates that the Corolla Wild Horse Fund can manage the wild herd that has lived on the Outer Banks for nearly 500 years, at the SCIENTIFICALLY recommended minimum of 120 to 130, with periodic introductions of mares from Shackleford Banks to try and reverse the Corolla herd’s current spiral into genetic oblivion. The only other remaining wild herd of Banker strain Colonial Spanish Mustangs left has been managed successfully at 120 to 130 since 1998 on Cape Lookout National Seashore/Shackleford Banks. Those horses live on 3,000 acres and the Corolla Horses have access to approximately 7,544. The Currituck Wildlife Refuge comprises 3,000 of the 7,544 acres available to the horses and our most recent aerial count documented only 8 horses on USFWS property.)
At issue is the United States Fish & Wildlife Service’s continued insistence that the herd size be managed at a maximum of 60. According to one of the nation’s leading equine geneticists and expert on feral horses, 150 is the number needed to maintain genetic diversity (once you have attained it) in a wild herd. Peer reviewed science has shown that the Corolla horses are not only highly inbred with extremely low genetic diversity, they are down to one maternal line. In contrast, the Shackleford Banks herd has three maternal lines.
On February 6, 2012, the United States House of Representatives did the right thing. They passed the Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act unanimously. The bill’s sponsor, Walter Jones, (R, NC) did the right thing by also ensuring that the bill had a good balance of bipartisan cosponsors as it moved to the Senate. Senator Kay Hagan (D, NC) sponsored the bill in the Senate. Governor Bev Perdue supported the bill. Our hopes were high, however, the bill languished in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee while USFWS and Ducks Unlimited worked behind the scenes to kill it, sending letters to committee members and the public containing false information. Congressman Jones, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States, the Animal Welfare Institute, and others, all did the right thing and tried fervently to have Senator Hagan garner support for the Corolla Wild Horses Protection Act. The bill that is the only hope for the very horse that the state of North Carolina designated as one of their state symbols, was allowed to die in committee.
Begin Part II. Again, Congressman Jones did the right thing again and reintroduced the bill in the House of Representatives on January 3, 2013. It has since passed through the Natural Resources Committee and is awaiting a vote on the House Floor. The Senate will have another chance to do the right thing. It is the right thing to do to protect and conserve a rare and ancient breed that is already listed as critically endangered. It is the right thing to do to protect and conserve an animal whose centuries old ancestors’ bones are mingled with the sand all along the coast of the Outer Banks. It is the right thing to do to conserve and protect an animal that has peacefully and successfully co-existed with all other wildlife for nearly 500 years. Why is it so hard for our legislators in the Senate to do the right thing?
Donate on Facebook and today’s hay is from YOU. You can help feed and house a Corolla Spanish Mustang awaiting adoption for only $5.00! If all our Facebook Friends donated $5.00 each, that would cover the cost of the best of care for up to 8 rescued Mustangs for a year!