The Outer Banks of North Carolina is one of very few places in America where wild horses still roam free, stubbornly surviving in this once remote coastal environment. Descended from spanish stock which arrived over 400 years ago, these hardy, tenacious horses have lived here since the earliest explorers and shipwrecks. In previous centuries there were thousands of these horses roaming the full length of the Outer Banks, from Shackleford Banks, all along Core Banks, Ocracoke, Hatteras, and on northward beyond Corolla on Currituck Banks. With the protected status now afforded to them, they should remain free to live as their ancestors have for centuries. They continue to capture the imagination of many people, especially horse-lovers.