Feral Thoughts

Another viewpoint in the brumby debate

Kath Massey from the Hunter Valley Brumby Association has written disagreeing with my post on the need to reconsider methods of control for brumbies in New South Wales. I've posted Kath's letter below and I'll respond to a couple of her points at the end of the post.

Hi Tony,

I have just read your recent article in Feral Thoughts and wanted to comment on some points.

Aerial culling is not a humane method of population control for any animal. You cannot humanely kill a fast moving animal from a moving platform and this has been verified by professional hunters. Horses that are riddled with bullets and left to die a slow agonising death, horse left to stagger around wounded and foals left to starve by their slaughtered mothers can never be considered humane. Then there are the environmental consequences of leaving the carcasses to rot and providing a food source for wild animals such as pigs and dogs. Yes Brumbies are unfortunately ending up in abattoirs but it is certainly a more humane way of killing them.

Brumby numbers in Alps a cause for concern. Public discussion needed.

Brumby, or wild horse, numbers in Australia's Alps are growing steadily and are a cause for concern.  A series of National Parks are linked across the Australian Alps covering parts of Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. The current numbers of horses in the region is unsustainable and the problem is rapidly worsening with perhaps as many as 12-14,000 horses predicted by 2012.

Brumby management is one of the most controversial of all feral animal issues. Few people argue that this number of horses is OK in the region - they are hard-hoofed animals in an area that evolved without hoofed animals and significant damage is caused. Horses form tracks and trails that can lead to draining of significant habitat for rare and threatened species like the corroboree frog and the broad-toothed rat. Native vegetation is significantly altered by horses and there are plants that occur only in this part of the world and nowhere else that are at risk of extinction.

But what to do about feral horses is the subject of much angst and disagreement. Horses occupy an iconic place for many people and the idea that they could be shot is alarming. A government horse cull of about 600 horses in the Guy Fawkes River National Park in the north of NSW caused a huge outcry in 2000 and effectively led to the removal of aerial culling as a method of control in the State. In New South Wales, the only method of control currently available is "catch and remove".