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Management Practices of Cumberland Island: Cumberland Island is an isolated ecosystem with minimal viable resources and extreme competition. Many animals live off the fruits that Cumberland bares but, let us look at feral horses, feral hogs, and deer. These three relatively large herbivores are grazers and browsers that are competing for many of the same resources. These three herbivores are living in a resource deprived area that lacks predators or any other source of population control, except disease. All of these animals are suffering due to the lack of resources driving them to search for food in the marshes and on the beaches. Two of theses three animals are not native to Cumberland Island. Horses and hogs were brought to Cumberland hundreds of years ago and are terrorizing its primitive, naturally functioning ecosystems of which other fauna depend. The National Park Service has managed Cumberland for more than 30 years and has continuously failed its obligation to uphold federal laws, NPS policy, and Cumberland Island’s Management Plan. At a time when a new management plan is being drafted by the NPS, this paper has been written to explore the management of Cumberland Island and its future. Along the Atlantic Coast of Georgia, there are great barrier islands protecting the mainland and sheltering the Atlantic Intercostals Waterway. It is along these waters that Cumberland Island National Seashore is located. Almost 18 miles long, the park covers 36,415 acres (Seabrook 35). One of the oldest barrier islands on the Atlantic Coast and with a landmass larger than Manhattan Island, Cumberland Island National Seashore is blessed with rich soil and a number of natural primitive ecosystems within the confines of its shores (35). Fertile and critical saltwater marshes, estuaries, fresh water ponds, forests of moss cover oak, massive dunes, and clean sand beaches can all be found within the island's boundaries. Cumberland’s natural habitat and biodiversity is being threatened by feral horses and hogs that were introduced to the island by humans. Animals, which were once domesticated, but have since reverted to a state of nature, are termed to be “feral”. There are feral dogs, cats, cattle, donkeys, and, in the case of Cumberland Island, feral hogs and horses. These animals are not wild in the sense that they are part of the naturally occurring fauna. However, they do display the behavior of what are termed wild animals or wildlife. Feral animals, because they do not occur naturally within a particular ecosystem, can drastically alter that ecosystem and in some instances threaten its very existence by harming or eliminating key indigenous plant and animal species (Housten 205). Such is the case on Cumberland Island, where feral hogs and horses threaten the diversity and long-term viability of the island’s natural resources (Seabrook 332-335). It appears that horses and hogs were introduced to many of Georgia’s barrier islands by Spanish explorers and missionaries more than 400 years ago (Seabrook 332-333). However, the Spanish were not frequent visitors to the islands and the Native Americans living there did not find the horses particularly useful, so it is thought that the earliest introduction of horses did not survived (333). When the English began settling Cumberland in the 1700’s, they also brought horses with them. By 1788, it was reported that there were free-roaming horses on the island (333). Indeed, General Nathaniel Greene wrote in 1785 of at least 200 feral horses on Cumberland (333). The National Park Service (NPS) acquired Cumberland Island in 1972 and has not introduced any additional horses (334). However, even as recently as the early 1990's, four Arabian horses were brought to the island by a resident in order to improve the stock of Cumberland’s horses (334). In 1969, Hilton Head developer Charles Fraser envisioned a copy of the South Carolina resort on Cumberland Island. When construction of a 5,000-foot long airstrip began, a massive movement to save the island started (Seabrook 235). In 1972, the Carnegie family, other retained right holders and The Mellon Foundation, working in close cooperation with environmentalists and the federal government, bought most of the private land on the island and donated it to the National Park Service (220-243). Cumberland Island National Seashore was born. In 1982, retained rights holders on Cumberland Island worked together with Congress to delegate much of the seashore and a large portion of the maritime forest as a wilderness area (225-226). Designating the land as wilderness area meant that the primitive natural ecosystems on Cumberland would be protected by the Wilderness Act of 1963. Feral horse damage to Cumberland’s flora and fauna is destroying different ecosystems on the island.
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