Wild horse kicks woman posing with it on Outer Banks, NC officials say. She was cited

Visitors to a national seashore in North Carolina were cited after they posed for a picture with a wild horse — but the wildlife harassment citation may not have been their worst penalty.

“The horse communicated its annoyance… and kicked the woman,” park rangers with Cape Lookout National Seashore wrote in a statement on the park’s Facebook page. The statement was published along with a photo of a woman, her face blocked with a black square, draping her arm over a horse and a man standing in front of them.

Commenters on the photo expressed their outrage at the behavior of the park visitors.

“She deserves it too!” one person wrote. “Not respecting Wildlife SMH. I hope they learned their lesson.”

“Ridiculous,” another wrote. “Do people think the (Shackleford Banks) are petting zoos?”

Shackleford Banks is part of Cape Lookout National Seashore on the Outer Banks, a collection of barrier islands on North Carolina’s coast.

The 56-mile long national seashore is managed by the National Park Service and is famous for its wild horses, known as “Banker ponies,” according to OuterBanks.com. The horses are thought to be the ancestors of Spanish Mustangs that were aboard ships that wrecked on the islands in the 1500s.

At the end of 2021 there were 121 horses on Shackleford Banks, according to a report from the National Park Service.

The horses are protected, and getting too close to any wild animal at a national park is a crime.

“It’s illegal to feed, touch, tease, frighten, or intentionally disturb wildlife,” according to the park service.

This story was originally published September 1, 2022 at 11:19 AM with the headline "Wild horse kicks woman posing with it on Outer Banks, NC officials say. She was cited."