ASSATEAGUE — Two more foals born to the herd of wild horses on the Maryland side of Assateague Island now have new monikers after the latest series of online naming rights contests.
Each year, the Assateague Island Alliance auctions the naming rights to foals born into the wild horse herd on the Maryland side of the barrier island in the previous year. AIA, the friends group of the Assateague Island National Seashore, advocates on behalf of the island’s most famous residents and the proceeds from the online naming rights auctions are dedicated to the organization’s various programs.
After a virtual baby boom on Assateague in the last year, the AIA has plenty of foals for which proper names are being auctioned. Years ago, the National Park Service began assigning alpha-numeric names to the new foals born on the barrier island as a means to track the lineage and ancestry of the foals and identify to which sub-herd they belong and the areas they frequent. The AIA’s naming rights auctions provide opportunities for the successful bidders to assign proper names to the foals.
The AIA last week completed two more foal-naming auctions. Nancy Scarborough of Fairfax, Virginia was the successful bidder for the foal formerly known as N2BHS-CKP and assigned the name Moonshadow to the young horse. Scarborough chose the name Moonshadow because the foal was born on the day of the solar eclipse earlier this year.
In a separate auction, Pam Rice of Allentown, Pa. was the successful bidder for the naming rights to N9BFQ-GP. Rice assigned the name Tommy Thunderbolt Nektosha to the foal, or Thunder for short. Tommy represents Rice’s father, Thunderbolt represents the foal’s likely sire Assateague Lightning and Nektosha is an Indian word for horse.
Collectively, the AIA’s naming rights auctions thus far this season have raised $3,760. The proceeds from the naming rights auctions will be dedicated to the AIA’s new “A Fed Horse is a Dead Horse” program implemented this fall.
The multi-faceted program is aimed at preventing the wild horses on Assateague from accessing potentially dangerous food brought into the parks by their human visitors. In addition to its public outreach and education aspects, the AIA will be helping to install wildlife-proof picnic tables and additional fencing around the areas of the parks frequented by the public.
Bidding is now open on eBay until Sunday for naming rights to N9BFT-KP, a sorrel filly born in September. The final Name that Foal auction will run from Dec. 10-20 for a bay pinto filly born in October.
