Today we took a boat tour around Assateague Island, looking for wildlife and learning about the area, the ponies, and the politics of the area. There is some controversy surrounded to beach area on Assateague. The Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries wants to make the beach unavailable to tourists, but that would kill the businesses on Chincoteague which rely on the tourists visiting to use the beach on Assateague. It is an ongoing battle that will not be resolved easily or soon. We also learned more about the ponies that are managed by the local Fire Dept and how the population of ponies is maintained. We were able to locate parts of 3 or more family groups of ponies on our boat tour. We also saw many hunting blinds and several shacks originally built for oyster harvesting.
