About 150 feral horses live on Cumberland Island but receive no food, water, or veterinary care from the National Park Service, which runs the island. In April 2023, advocates for the horses filed suit, alleging that federal and state authorities have allowed the horses to suffer at the same time the horses themselves have damaged the island and its native species.
Earlier this month a federal judge dismissed that suit on legal grounds, but nudged federal and state agencies to listen to the substance of the complaints.
U.S. District Judge Sarah E. Geraghty determined that because the National Park Service “has simply taken no action with respect to the feral horses at all” no judicial review was required.
She did, however, express a desire to see changes for Cumberland and its horses.
“While this case must be dismissed, the Court hopes that the important issues Plaintiffs have raised here might spur the NPS or other agencies to act,” Geraghty wrote.
Attorney Hal Wright, who represented the horses and their advocates, said he echoed that hope.
“It is a very disappointing decision,” he wrote in an email to The Current. “While the Court determined Plaintiffs ‘have plausibly argued that the NPS should take steps to protect and manage Cumberland Island’s feral horse population, not only for the well-being of the horses, but also to preserve the island’s ecosystem and its endangered species,’ the Court also determined ‘the NPS has simply taken no action with respect to the feral horses at all’ which justifies judicial review.
“The essence of the Court’s opinion established only that the Court is ‘unwilling’ rather than ‘unable’ to enforce the laws and statutes against the National Park Service,” Wright wrote.
A spokeswoman for the Department of the Interior referred a request for comment on the order to the National Park System, which did not respond.
Bad for the horses, bad for the island
Horses aren’t native to Cumberland Island and have a tough time eking out a living on the island’s saltmarshes, beaches and maritime forest. And they are often at odds with species that do belong there.
Cumberland’s horses trample the nests of loggerhead sea turtles and piping plovers, species protected under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). But because it’s the horses, not the National Park Service, destroying the nests, the service isn’t legally responsible, according to the judge:
“As for Plaintiffs’ ESA claims, they must be dismissed because Plaintiffs have not pointed to any affirmative act that the NPS has taken which requires formal consultation under the ESA, or any agency action that could have harmed an endangered species,” the order states.
Patty Livingston is the president of the Georgia Equine Rescue League and the Georgia Horse Council, both plaintiffs in the case.
“I’m disappointed, but not surprised,” she said in a telephone interview with The Current. “Just based on the way things have been going, and (the National Park Service’s) immediate jump to dismiss, that pretty much said it all. They weren’t wanting to work with doing anything for the horses, really, from the very beginning. So that’s why they’re the only island with no management plan.”
Feral horses live at other National Park properties, including Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia and Cape Hatteras National Seashore in North Carolina. The Park Service actively manages the horses in both places. But not on Cumberland, where the horses are a draw for tourists. Cumberland’s private Greyfield Inn, where the rooms start at $825 a night, offers nature tours that promise the opportunity to “view the secrets of Cumberland: historical ruins, wild horses, and lush maritime forests.”
“The rules for each park are different, even if they all have horses, even if they’re all on a shoreline,” Livingston said. “Everyone has their different rules – or the rules that they decide to follow.”
Carol Ruckdeschel, another plaintiff and a naturalist who has lived on Cumberland for decades, went further.
“This park is barely functional at this time,” she wrote in an email to The Current. “Never had an ecologist on staff here, so how can we expect them to understand the plight of the horses or their impact on the island? Any normal person, horse fan or not, should be able to see the animals are in serious trouble, which increases daily as the forest recovers.
“I wish I could understand how they can overlook the animal’s troubles simply for money, having them here for our selfish viewing pleasure, but I cannot. To me it is criminal!”
To a typical visitor on Cumberland, many of the horses look healthy, Livingston said. The stallions and the juvenile horses are often in better shape than the mares, though, which are either pregnant or nursing — or both — all their adult lives.
“It’s the mothers (that suffer), because they’re in this perpetual cycle of feeding three, foraging for three,” Livingston said.
She’d like to see Cumberland Island officials follow the example of these other East Coast seashores and manage the feral horses, possibly by darting the females with contraceptives.
“To get 100% of the public behind it is hard because they go there and they don’t really see the skinny horses,” she said.
People unfamiliar with horses may not recognize signs of poor nutrition Livingston readily observes in Cumberland’s mares, including sharply pointed hips and a “shelf” – a lack of fat from the spine to the ribs.
Georgia agencies weigh in
The suit sought to force the horses’ removal from Cumberland, and to compel the Equine Division of the Georgia Department of Agriculture to make sure they’re cared for humanely until they were removed.
The order did not address directly the claims against two Georgia agencies, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Natural Resources. Instead, adhering to legal precedent, the court dismissed the state claims because the federal claims were dismissed before trial.
DNR Deputy Commissioner Trevor W. Santos noted that his agency does not own or operate any part of Cumberland Island, though it does “enforce the Coastal Marshlands Protection Act, the Shore Protection Act, and other state statutes on limited portions of Cumberland Island, including the beach.”
For example, DNR has issued more than 250 beach-driving permits on the island, including some to the National Park Service. But it’s not challenging the federal government’s actions regarding horses.
“Given the vast majority of Cumberland Island is held by the federal government, we would look to our federal partners to act as they determine to be appropriate,” Santos wrote in an email to The Current.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture, also a defendant in the suit, expects the case against it to resurface.
“We anticipate that parts of the suit will be refiled in state court, and for that reason we have no official comment,” Spokesman Matthew Agvent wrote in an email to The Current.
Next steps uncertain
Wright, the attorney for the horses and their advocates, hinted that the judge’s order may not be the last word on Cumberland’s horses.
“I am not sure what one does when those whose duty it is to act affirmatively refuse,” he wrote in an email to The Current. “It may just be the beginning.”
Livingston said the horse advocates she works with at the Georgia Horse Council and the Georgia Equine Rescue League haven’t made a decision about what’s next.
“We’re going to regroup and talk about some different tacks and see what comes out on top, and how my team wants to go forward with it or not,” she said. “But I can tell you this from the results of the order to dismiss, they weren’t happy.”
