Between 150 and 200 wild ponies made the annual swim to the shore of this resort island in dense fog Wednesday morning.
It took the ponies about five minutes to cross the 200-yard channel from Assateague, Md., a barrier island in the Atlantic Ocean, shortly after 8:30 a.m., Shotwell said.
The ponies were then herded through town to a corral on the carnival grounds, where they will be sold at auction Thursday.
Yearlings and younger are sold to thin the herd and raise money for the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, which cares for the ponies.
Ponies that aren't sold, as well as those donated back to the fire department, will swim back to roam again on Assateague, a national wildlife refuge.
The pony swim was made famous by Marguerite Henry's 1947 novel "Misty of Chincoteague."
6 comments:
gosh... maybe you should be working at the humane society.
i know. i appear to be obsessed with animals. i noticed that about every other blog is about one. although, humane societies do not house wild or farm animals do they?
ya we do! if they are stray or hurt we go get em.
Right now we have a pot belly.
we've had llamas and goats and horses and rams and snakes and squirrels.
I want a pig!!! how big is it?
actually scratch that. i live with someone who calls himself baconscraps.
It's little. It's a little bastard though. And it crapped all over the floor.
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