The Important Role of an Established Mare on Shackleford Banks

12N snakes her head at the bay mare and drives her down the beach towards her band

We were just sitting on the boat, sipping our coffee and taking in the morning light, when we saw the ponies on the beach. I grabbed my binoculars and saw that it was the bleached-faced light chestnut mare from the two stallion band. She was the one who had the National Park Service 12N brand on her right hind quarter. She was walking from east to west, which meant she would pass right by us, sitting on our boat, having coffee.
12N was driving another mare along in front of her by holding her head low with her ears back and every now and then thrusting her muzzle forward as if to wave the other mare on. This behavior is known as snaking. The other mare was a bay, and I hesitantly identified her as the pregnant, bay mare we had seen arriving into this same band a few days before with a dark bay juvenile filly at her side.

They had been greeted into the band by both the stallions, the dark bay main stallion and his liver chestnut flaxen-maned lieutenant. I wrote about this in an earlier post, here, where I described the dynamics of a two-stallion band, the arrival of these mares, their acceptance into the band by the stallions, and how they stayed behind as the band drifted off.

It appeared as though the chestnut mare was marching the bay mare back to her band and returning her to their territory. Here on the hilly, forested west end of Shackleford Banks, the stallions are known to share territories a little more than is normal for wild horses and even more so than on the eastern, more open and flat end of this same island, where the stallions do defend their territories.

Even though stallions on the west end of Shackleford defend their territories from other stallions less often, they still seem fairly loyal to a location and still mark their territories with dung piles. It was to this territory of the two-stallion band that I believed the chestnut mare was marching the bay mare. Established mares often work to keep their bands together by driving wayward, less loyal mares back into the band and keeping the young ones from straying too far away.

Although I do not know the story that the humans who know her tell of 12N’s life, I can tell that she is a well-established mare who is very important to the cohesiveness and functioning of her band on the west end of Shackleford. She has the best body weight condition score of any of the ponies we have seen on the island, suggesting she is a knowledgeable long-term survivor.

Established mares are often the ones that make the decisions for their bands about where to graze and where and when to go for water. 12N and a mature dark bay mare are close to each other, and the band’s bay breeding stallion. There was a moment the other day between these two mares that demonstrated the importance of 12N’s opinion to the confidence and feeling of security of her friend, the dark bay mare.

just after the identification, arrival and greeting of the newly arrived mares, first by the lieutenant stallion who set out to meet them, as they were arriving, and then by the bay stallion as they came closer, the dark bay mare walked over to check in with 12N. She gently sniffed 12N’s flank as if to ask in horse-speak if she thought everything was ok. Then, after sniffing her, she let out a series of yawns as if now that she understood everything was fine, she could let go of tension through some big yawn releases.

After yawning, the dark bay mare followed lazily behind 12N and started to graze at her side. Neither mare bothered to greet the newly arrived mares with shared breathing. Shared breathing is when two individuals greet by blowing into each other's nostril to exchange important information. Horses usually prefer to perform this ritual of information gathering right nostril to right nostril, especially with other horses that they do not know well.

This preference is called a hemisphere lateralization preference. Like in people, the different hemispheres of the brain are specialized for different tasks and emotional uses. In horses, there is a general right-nostril preference when smelling emotionally arousing stimuli, suggesting specialized processing of sensory information.

The bay mare that was being marched down the beach by 12N did not look pleased with her. She had more of a look of surrender than peace and confidence. My thought is that this bay mare and her filly (or younger companion) are displaced mares that are not yet loyal to another band and are being claimed by the two-stallion band that 12N is an important member of.

We watched 12N and her charge until they left the beach through a tangle of low trees headed in the direction we had watched them grazing in a few days before, the area I believe to be 12N’s loosely held home territory, the one her stallions mark with their stud piles.

I took a swallow of my coffee and felt pleased with this snippet of these ponies' lives that we had just witnessed without leaving the boat. Little did I know that this was only the start of the pony drama, which would continue to unfold over the course of the day ahead. Stay tuned for what happened next.

12N stands with the band stallion on her right flank and the dark-bay mare on her left flank, as they watch the lieutenant stallion run out to greet the arriving mares

The bay mare that 12N drove down the beach on the left with the younger mare she arrived into the band with on her right

The dark-bay mare sniffs 12N to make sure everything is alright

Then she yawns to release the tension she felt from the arrival of the other mares into the band

The dark-bay mare still releasing tension as 12N wanders off