In 4WD area of Currituck Banks, residents’ frustration rises over wild horse tours

By Kip Tabb | Outer Banks Voice on June 4, 2025

By Kip Tabb | Outer Banks Voice

Frustrated that their concerns about the actions of wild horse tour guides in their Swan Beach and North Swan Beach neighborhoods in the 4WD area of the Currituck Banks are falling on deaf ears, residents have become increasingly vocal in calling for additional regulations.

“They’ve [the tour companies] got 12 hours a day that they’re allowed to ride past our homes in our neighborhoods, and that’s, seven to 10 tours, five trucks each,” Swan Beach resident Cindy Midkiff told the Voice. “If they made one pass [that’s] one thing. But if there’s horses, they make two or three passes. You do the math on that. It’s quite substantial.”

At “8 a.m., people are waking up, drinking their coffee, sitting on the deck, and they want to enjoy nature, and all you hear is a diesel engine parked out front,” Corolla resident Brad McVaugh told the Voice. “And it’s not just one. You’ll have four or five or eight trucks from different companies right around your house, especially if there’s a foal.”

The complaints are not limited to noise. McVaugh points out that the sand roads to the west of the dunes in Swan Beach and North Swan Beach are private roads “slated for public use, but no one maintains those roads,” he said.

“The owners are responsible for the road. So if anything needs to be fixed or repaired, that falls on us. Currituck County doesn’t pay a cent to fix those roads,” Midkiff said. “Those roads are really fragile sand roads. And there are lots of blind hills. There’s very few places where you can fit two cars.”

Not all roads in the 4WD area are private roads, however. Carova, on the Virginia border, is a service district and “those are public roads. Tax dollars go to maintaining those roads,” McVaugh said. But in Swan Beach, property owners pay a local contractor to repair and re-grade the roads.

Although there is anger about the noise, disruption and the potential for damage to the roads caused by tour companies, residents are particularly frustrated that compromise proposals they have presented to the Currituck County Commissioners have languished with neither discussion nor action.

Asked by the Voice if resident concerns about the horse tours had been raised to the current board of Currituck County Commissioners, Board Chair Paul O’Neal responded, “I have not had anyone speak to me about horse tours, good or bad.”

Currently tours are allowed from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and residents have suggested reducing that time. “Ten to four, or something like that,” Midkiff said.

“I do not see the need to come behind the dune line into a neighborhood. You can run the tours easily on the beach,” she added. “I’ve been before the [commissioners] three times now, and that’s what we’ve asked for. Just a compromise.”

A tour vehicle drives through a flooded sand road, potentially causing damage. (Submitted photo)

Midkiff and other residents did meet with commissioners in a February 2022 workshop that included a video showing tour vehicles gathered around horses and documenting tours driving through standing water on the road that appeared to reach the top of wheel wells.

Currituck County minutes note that, “Recommendations included only allowing tours between the hours of 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM, establishing routes, limiting the number of vehicles that can operate concurrently, and prohibiting tours on roads behind the dunes when flooding exists.” To date, the commissioners have not acted on the recommendations.

When asked about resident concerns, tour operators pushed back strongly on a number of their points.

“Tours are already heavily regulated, as we should be,” said Grady Cole, owner of Wild Horse Adventure Tours. “The eight-to-eight [hours], I’m indifferent to that. If it were shortened, we’re still going to give a great experience no matter what. But there are tour ordinances that go even further than just state law. There are severe penalties. If we get two tickets in a 30-day period, we’re shut down temporarily, and the punishments only increase from there.”

Former Chair of the Currituck Board of Commissioners, Bob White who owns Bob’s Wild Horse Adventure Tours, told the Voice that the 12 hours the tours are allowed to operate came about through discussions with residents.

“Years ago, it was kind of a free for all. We [the tour operators] sat down with a bunch of people from the four by four, and county staff…and went through the resident concerns, and talked it all out and came up with the eight to eight [operating horse] so you can sit on your porch in the morning, have a cup of coffee and not worry about a horse tour coming by,” he said, apparently disagreeing with McVaugh about the coffee hour in the area.

White also recalled that Swan Beach and North Swan Beach were offered the opportunity to create a service district that would have allowed the county to maintain their roads but chose not to do so.

“Carova is done by the county. They created the service district, and the residents pay in a couple pennies of tax on their property tax bill, and that goes towards that,” he said. “The county came through, probably 20 ago and said, ‘Hey, we can do a service district here,’ and Swan Beach and North Swan Beach said,’ No, thanks.’”

For her part, Midkiff points out there are impacts to the wild horse herd as well as the residents.

“You’ve got to think about the horses, too,” she said describing mares separated from foals by tour vehicles a then desperate to reunite. White was adamant that crowding the horses is not permitted and when it does, he takes action.

“There are occasions where I’ve had people that have worked for me that were problems, and I’ve gotten rid of them because I received multiple complaints about an individual,” he said. “There’s no evidence that the horse tours are negatively impacting the horses and their behavior. If anything, we are more eyes and ears. We can call Meg [Puckett, Corolla Wild Horse Fund Herd Manager] and say, ‘Hey, there’s a problem over here.’”

If resident concerns have not yet reached the full board since the 2022 work session, newly elected Commissioner Tony Angell, who represents the 4WD area is aware of the “tension that happens over there,” telling the Voice, “It’s never as easy as everybody thinks it is…Not only are you impacting tourism and, people’s livelihoods, but you’ve also got to worry about property owners’ rights and stuff like that.”

The Corolla Wild Horse Fund [CWHF] has been managing and protecting the wild horse herd since it was founded in 1989. Over that 36-year period, the organization has worked with the herd, the community, government and tour operators,

“If we can all sit down together and listen to each other and, transparently answer questions and then say, ‘Okay, here’s how we move forward together,’ I think that’s where the long-term answer lies,” said Wild Horse Fund Executive Director Chris Winter.