The island is located far out in the North Atlantic Ocean, more than 150 kilometres off the coast of Nova Scotia. It is roughly 45 kilometres long, and 1.5 kilometres wide. Sable is shaped like a long thin smile; some people think it looks more like the crescent of a new moon. Sable is an island of sand and grass — there are no rocks and no trees. During the last 500 years, a variety of animals have lived on the island. Cattle, pigs, rabbits, rats and mice arrived on Sable with fishermen, explorers and settlers. Although it is often said that the wild horses are descendants of shipwreck survivors, the original horses were, like cattle and rabbits, deliberately brought to the island by people. Sable’s wide fields of beach grass were fine pastures for grazing. There was no need to build fences, and there were no predators on the island. So in the 1700s, horses were put on Sable. They were left to graze undisturbed, and then later they would be rounded up and taken back for sale on the mainland.
