Please note, despite what the title suggests, this is not a field guide to tracks left by these horses.
The free-roaming horses of Assateague have survived on this ever-changing barrier island for hundreds of years. Today, Assateague is a National Seashore, where natural resource conservation is prioritized and more than 2 million people a year visit. The clever, resilient horses have adapted well to the incursion of people into their home ranges, but the presence of horses on the island has created friction as factions argue for against their continued residence.
By profession, Bonnie Urquhart Gruenberg is a Certified Nurse-Midwife and Women's Health Nurse Practitioner who welcomes babies into the world in Lancaster County, PA. Specializing in obstetric and equine topics, she is a prolific author, artist and photographer. For nearly two decades, she has spent countless hours researching and photographing the private lives of wild horses in both Western and Eastern habitats. Her award-winning textbook Birth Emergency Skills Training (Birth Guru/Birth Muse, 2008) has been translated into Russian, and was developed into a hands-on workshop. She also has published Essentials of Prehospital Maternity Care (Prentice Hall, 2005); Hoofprints in the Sand: Wild Horses of the Atlantic Coast (as Bonnie S. Urquhart; Eclipse, 2002), and numerous other books, e-books and articles. Prior to her career in obstetrics, she worked as an urban paramedic in Connecticut.