Beaufort residents and visitors enjoy watching the feral horses as they roam over the inside barrier islands across from the town's main street. These islands are now known as the Rachel Carson Estuarine Reserve. The islands that make up what is now the reserve are Town Marsh, Bird Shoal, Carrot Island and Horse Island. The horse population is strictly controlled to a herd size of forty. In order to reach another island, the horses simply swim from one island to another.
Descended from domesticated horses and taken to the islands to graze over a hundred years ago, the horses are compact and naturally small, usually less than 14 hands high. Their rugged appearance is a result of living in the wild. The people who work for the estuarine reserve do not feed the ponies because to do so would affect their status as wild animals. The horses must find food and water on their own. Food comes in the form of various salt-marsh grasses that grow on the tidal flats and low dunes. Drinking water comes from temporary freshwater pools. When they have to, the horses sniff out rainwater that's trapped beneath the soil and use their hooves to dig down until they reach the fresh water.
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