[guitar leads resonant melody]

♪

(narrator)
Some things never change

on North Carolina's
Outer Banks.

Day after day,
breakers kiss the shore.

Ceaseless tides
irrigate the marshland

and then creep back
out to sea.

[surf noise]

And here and there
along the 175 mile or so

stretch of barrier islands

from Ocracoke north
to the Virginia border,

wild horses may be glimpsed
grazing contentedly

among the dunes.

They're not as widely
dispersed over the banks

as they once were,

descendents
of equine passengers

on Spanish sailing ships

that ran aground
in the 17th century.

(woman)
There are 2,000 shipwrecks

on the bottom
of the Atlantic Ocean

up and down the Outer Banks,

so, although there's no record,

it stands to reason
that some horses

were probably able
to survive shipwrecks

and swim ashore.

And some horses
were simply left behind

when colonies failed.

A nonprofit
has a mission,

and it benefits the greater
good of the community.

(narrator)
Karen McCalpin
is a colonist of sorts,

a transplant to the Outer
Banks from Pennsylvania,

lured here by the prospect
of her dream job,

managing the northernmost
population of wild horses

as director of the nonprofit
Corolla Wild Horse Fund.

(McCalpin)
They've been here
almost five centuries,

and the United States
Fish and Wildlife Service

defines them as nonnative,
feral, invasive pest animals.

I'm not native, but, uh,

I don't know how long you
have to live here to be native.

It seems like five centuries
oughta be plenty of time.

They're just amazing horses.

(narrator)
Amazing, also, is a good word

to apply to early
preservation efforts.

(McCalpin)
The organization
was actually formed in 1989

as a completely all-volunteer,
grassroots organization

by a group of residents
who had becomed concerned

as more and more horses
began to get hit on 12,

as development, uh, increased
between Duck and Corolla,

and in 1989, a stallion
by the name of Star,

with whom everyone
was familiar, was killed,

and that was the last straw,
so to speak.

(narrator)
The herd count in the area
threatened by development,

here counted by helicopter,

had diminished to about 20
by the early '90s.

By the time Karen arrived
on the scene in 2006,

the horse population
was on the rise

with 7,500-plus
protected acres to roam,

including portions

of the Currituck National
Wildlife Refuge

and some low-impact
residential developments.

(McCalpin)
The horses really have
five main habitat areas.

They eat the coarse grasses
that grow on the dunes

and the sea oats.

Behind the dunes,
there's dry meadow,

wet meadow,

there's a maritime forest

that runs up the middle
of the island.

That's basically
its highest point.

You'll find them there
in the winter eating acorns,

like the deer.

And then, of course, along
the sound there's the marshes.

We have the area,
for our purposes,

divided into four zones, and,
uh, we know which harems ,

and a harem
is a dominant stallion

and generally
one to four mares--

some have more,
some have less.

We know which harems we're
going to find in which zones,

and so they move freely
within that zone.

They rarely move out of that
area because if they do,

they risk losing their mares

to the dominant stallion
in the next zone.

(narrator)
It may seem unusual

to see wild horses
grazing around houses,

but that's the nature
of things here,

where civilization
and history meet

in a uniquely
accommodating way.

(McCalpin)
One of the things

that we spend
a tremendous amount of time

and effort doing is educating,

both on the beach
and behind the dunes,

because the wild horses here
are tolerant of humans.

That's why you can drive by
one of them grazing

and they probably
won't even look up at you.

But they can be standing
along the shoreline

and looking very peaceful,

and people start to gather
around and take pictures,

and suddenly a rival stallion
appears on the dune line

and comes down--
thundering down the dune.

Now you're in the middle of
a very brutal, vicious fight.

They will not care whether
you're standing there or not--

your vehicle's there,
your child's there,

your chair's there.

(narrator)
The most enduring threat
to the Corolla horses,

however, is neither
commercial encroachment

nor the wild horse tourism

that has blossomed
in the area.

It's genetic.

The gene pool is collapsing
due to inbreeding.

Dr. Gus Cothran
of Texas A&M University

is the leading expert
on wild horse genetics.

(McCalpin)
In 2007, we pulled, uh,
DNA samples

with remotely delivered darts,

and in 2008,
the results came back

that we had one of the lowest
levels of genetic diversity

of any wild herd anywhere.

(Cothran)
So that means that they
have lost genetic diversity,

relative to other
horse populations.

And that's likely due,
or almost certainly due,

to the very small
population size

that existed at one time.

Small population size
means inbreeding,

and inbreeding means
loss of genetic variability.

(narrator)
Mitochondrial DNA research
in Dr. Cothran's lab

provided clues to the Corolla
horses' ancestry.

(Cothran)
All of the barrier island
horse populations,

which are now isolated
from each other,

show closer relationship
to each other

than they do to anything else,

suggesting
some common ancestry.

But by looking
at particular variants

that we know
where they are most common

and where they
most likely come from,

we have clear evidence
that the, uh, Banker horses

have some old Spanish blood
in them.

And that could only
have come from something

probably three
to four hundred years ago.

(narrator)
There are three zones
of wild horses

along North Carolina's
Outer Banks:

at Corolla, Shackleford Banks,
and Ocracoke.

(Cothran)
They're all related
to each other,

but they're all different
from each other as well.

And so a small number
of exchanges

from Shackleford, for example,

will boost the Corolla
variability very quickly.

The new genes will circulate
throughout the population

over a few generations.

(narrator)
The idea here
is to keep the population

at an optimal level,

both to maintain diversity

and to develop
and manage a population

similar to that
established in legislation

that protects
the Shackleford ponies,

but that proposal is mired
in congressional limbo.

(McCalpin)
And that is why
we've been working so hard

on the Corolla Wild Horses
Protection Act.

That languages mirrors
the Shackleford Banks Act,

asks for a minimum herd size
of 120 to 130,

with never less than 110,

with the added caveat
that we be able to bring, uh,

a limited amount of mares
from Shackleford,

and that is the critical step
that will add new genes

to our dying gene pool,
and it is dying,

and they will be gone
in a few generations

if we don't act quickly.

(narrator)
Meantime, the good work

of Corolla Wild Horse Fund
continues.

Meet Amadeo,

a 16-year-old stallion
with an amazing story.

(McCalpin)
Amadeo's name is, uh,

the Spanish, uh, derivative
for "blessed by God."

He was in a fight
with a much younger stallion.

He was already
missing his right eye,

and horses
are fight-or-flight animals,

and because
he was losing the fight,

his only choice was to flee.

But his good eye had been
damaged in the fight,

and so he was disoriented.

He ran into the ocean.

It was on a day
we had 10-foot waves

and 30-mile-an-hour winds.

(narrator)
Amadeo was pulled
over a mile by the riptide.

He was finally rescued,

but the trauma
left him completely blind.

[horn accompanies
delicate piano composition]

♪

Volunteer Mike Gaulding
is a true horse whisperer.

Amadeo needs to be moved
to a new facility,

and Mike must earn his trust.

♪

It's fine;
you're OK.

You're all right.

♪

Calm down.

[whispering]
That's a good boy.

Nobody's gonna
hurt you.

♪

(narrator)
All wild horses
destined for adoption

must be trained
to adapt to humans

and are,
thanks to an affiliation

with the Equine
Technology program

of Martin Community College.

So the Corolla ponies
come to us

when they've been
removed from the beach

or off of the premises.

We basically domesticate them.

They've not been touched;
they've not been haltered.

They've never been in a stall
before at that point.

So they come to us, um,
basically with no education,

and it's pretty appropriate
that they come to college

because by the time
they leave here,

they--they have, uh,
their associates degree.

He's learned how to lunge.

He's learned
how to line drive.

He also has been ridden
for the first time,

and he has, um,
he's done very, very well.

He really likes
the domesticated life,

and you can see he's--
he's quite chubby.

[gentle guitar melody]

(narrator)
For something like 400 years
of time and tide,

these Banker horses--

call 'em ponies if you want;
they don't care--

they've been
nourishing themselves

on sea oats and wild grasses
around the dunes,

in the maritime forest,
and sound-side marshes.

We put 'em there,

and now it's our collective
responsibility

to make sure their descendents
not only survive but thrive--

a whole lot of wonder...
and a little bit of wild

on the thin edge of our coast.

♪