Where do the ponies go during storms?

ASSATEAGUE ISLAND, Md. — With all the talk of hurricanes and how humans can prepare, do you ever wonder how wild weather affects wild ponies?

Assateague Island National Seashore Superintendent Hugh Hawthorne is no stranger to the question. “They’ve lived here for many generations on the island for hundreds of years, literally. So obviously they figured out how to survive on this island,” he said.

As I walked around the beach, some visitors had their own guesses.

Local resident Joey Ruiz, a child, said, “I think they go under the trees when it is raining and thundering. They go back home and out of the beach.”

Turns out, there’s something to that thought. Hawthorne said, “You’ll often see them standing, almost standing in line right next to each other. They have their rear end toward the wind, where the wind’s coming, and their nose pointed away from the wind. They know those areas are safer, and those areas are safer because the trees keep them out of the wind.”

The ponies stay in the forest until the storm dies down. So why do they love the water so much, despite the risk of storms?

“When it’s windy and the weather’s really bad, the biting flies aren’t out. So that sort of gives them that. They don’t really have a reason to go to the ocean,” Hawthorne said.

He also said that seeing injured ponies after storms is a rare occurrence.