A riding stable called White Sands Trail Rides operated until recently within sight of the ferry dock. On one of my 1995 research trips, I found it impossible to resist the lure of riding good horses over flour-white dunes and into clear shallows of brackish water. Dan Way, my savvy guide, attributed the whiteness of the beach to the fact that the was mostly ground shell material.

Until that time, I had been unaware that Cedar Island was still home to a small band of feral horses, the last remnant of herds that had flourished there for centuries. Holding my peppy buckskin to a walk proved to be a challenge as Dan and I searched for feral bands. Gentle waves lapped at the legs of our horses as we traced the water's edge. "Sometimes you can see them out in the marsh", Dan explained. "Their heads come up when anyone gets too close. They won't let you get near-somehow they can gallop over the marsh without sinking. People sink right in!"

We continued our conversation in the comfort of the well-kept barn. Dan explained that 600 to 700 horses, mostly bays, grays, and blacks, once ranged freely in the island's marshes. Salt-marsh cordgrass was their dietary mainstay, which locals claim repels intestinal parasites, serving as a natural wormer for horses and cattle alike. Steve Yeomans, a young local horseman, said that he had only seen about seven horses remaining, possibly more-but few were mares. He hadnt seen any new foals that year, and by sheer bad luck, nearly all new foals born over the past few years had been male. Without fillies to produce new foals, he explained, these horses could well be the last of the Cedar Island herds.

Steve dove into the topic and enthusiastically told tales of this local culture, so heavily influenced by the Banker ponies. Steve was bright and knowledgeable, and his blue eyes sparked as he embraced topics such as riding, breeding, veterinary concerns, and local history.

Warming to his favorite subject, he led me to the back yard and compared the skull of a feral Banker horse that he had found in the marsh to several skulls of other breeds. The wild mare's skull showed the steep muzzle common to Banker horses. In his Southern drawl (pronouncing mares "mars") he pointed out how evenly her teeth had been ground by the marsh grass. By contrast, domestic horses often need their irregularly-worn teeth filed smooth in a procedure known as "floating." As time went on, other horsemen joined us in the barn, and each contributed information in turn.

Spanish cattle, about 50 head, still roamed the island, wild and perhaps untamable. This may be one of the only islands where Spanish cattle still run free, as they did in colonial times. "They've been living out in these marshes so long, they have developed webbing between their hooves, to keep them from sinking in," insisted the stable owner. I eyed him skeptically but politely wrote his comment in my notebook-until he began to guffaw that no, there really were no web-footed cattle on Cedar Island.

A year later, tragedy struck on Cedar Island. All the horses at White Sands tested positive for equine infectious anemia, and all, eleven to fifteen individuals, were euthanized in December of 1996, in accordance with North Carolina law. A few feral horses still remained on Cedar until June, 1997, when the free-roaming population was rounded up and tested for this disease. As it turned out, the local wild horses were the disease reservoir. Of the fifteen horses tested, thirteen were positive for EIA, and were euthanized, marking the end of the feral herds of Cedar Island.