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​The Friends of Assateague State Park promote the park's efforts to ensure safe and positive interactions between our visitors and the island's wild horses and other wildlife. FOASP’s Break the Habit initiative provides financial support, assists with grant writing and management, and assists in educating campers and visitors about what you can do to share the island safely with the wild horses.

Horses are creatures of habit, and they unfortunately have become habituated to being fed or to scavenge food from campsites. This food is not healthy for them, even things like apples and carrots can cause a wild horse to get afflicted with colic, suffer and potentially die. When visitors store food properly, this results in many fewer food related incidents or dangerous interactions between horses and humans.

The park is transitioning to horse-resistant picnic tables with attached food storage units. Campers will still use hard-sided containers (such as totes) or zippered storage bags, but can store these securely beneath their table. These tables are currently located in several camp loops and will be throughout the campground over the next few seasons. FOASP will be promoting new educational efforts to encourage use of these and continued safe storage of food and pet food throughout the campground- please do your part to Break the Habit!

If you would like to help support our efforts in keeping the wild horses of Assateague safe, please donate to Friends of Assateague State Park.  Every donation will bring us closer to our goal of 350 picnic tables and new educational materials for our visitors.​