Right: brumbies in a NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service trap. If these horses are lucky, they may end up as riding animals.
 Found a word you're not familiar with? Double-click that word to bring up a dictionary reference to it. The dictionary page includes an audio sound file with which to actually hear the word said. |
Background information
(The information below is abbreviated from a Wikipedia entry titled 'Brumby'
The full entry can be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brumby)
A Brumby is a free-roaming feral horse in Australia. Although found in many areas around the country, the best-known Brumbies are found in the Australian Alps region in south-eastern Australia. Today, most of them are found in the Northern Territory, with the second largest population in Queensland. A group of Brumbies is known as a 'mob' or 'band'.
Brumbies are the descendants of escaped or lost horses, dating back in some cases to those belonging to the early European settlers, including the "Capers" from South Africa, Timor Ponies from Indonesia, British pony and draught horse breeds, and a significant number of Thoroughbreds and Arabians.
Today they live in many places, including some National Parks. Occasionally they are mustered and domesticated for use as campdrafters, working stock horses on farms or stations, but also as trail horses, show horses, Pony Club mounts and pleasure horses. They are the subject of some controversy - regarded as a pest and threat to native ecosystems by environmentalists and the government, but also valued by others as part of Australia's heritage, with supporters working to prevent inhumane treatment or extermination, and re-homing Brumbies who have been captured.
Origin of the term
The first recorded use of the term 'brumby' in print is in the Australasian magazine from Melbourne in 1880, which said that Brumbies were the bush name in Queensland for 'wild' horses. In 1885, the Once a Month magazine suggested that brumbies was a New South Wales term, and the poet Banjo Paterson stated in the introduction for his poem Brumby's Run published in the Bulletin in 1894 that Brumby was the word for free-roaming horses. Its derivation is obscure.
Early horse imports
Horses first arrived in Australia in 1788 with the First Fleet. They were imported for farm and utility work; recreational riding and racing were not major activities. By 1800, only about 200 horses are thought to have reached Australia. Horse racing became popular around 1810, resulting in an influx of Thoroughbred imports, mostly from England. Roughly 3,500 horses were living in Australia by 1820, and this number had grown to 160,000 by 1850, largely due to natural increase. The long journey by sea from England, Europe, and Asia meant that only the strongest horses survived the trip, making for a particularly healthy and strong Australian stock, which aided in their ability to flourish.
Origin of feral herds
Horses were likely confined primarily to the Sydney region until the early 19th century, when settlers first crossed the Blue Mountains and opened expansion inland. Horses were required for travel, and for cattle and sheep droving as the pastoral industry grew. The first report of an escaped horse is in 1804, and by the 1840s some horses had escaped from settled regions of Australia. It is likely that some escaped because fences were not properly installed, when fences existed at all, but it is believed that most Australian horses became feral because they were released into the wild and left to fend for themselves. This may have been the result of pastoralists abandoning their settlements, and thus their horses, due to the arid conditions and unfamiliar land that combined to make farming in Australia especially difficult. After World War I, the demand for horses by defence forces declined with the growth in mechanization, which led to a growth in the number of unwanted animals that were often set free. Throughout the 20th century, the replacement of horses with machines in farming led to further falls in demand, and therefore may have also contributed to increases in feral populations.
Currently, Australia has at least 400,000 horses roaming the continent. It is also estimated that, during non-drought periods, the feral horse population increases at a rate of 20 percent per year. Drought conditions and brushfires are natural threats. Despite population numbers, feral horses are generally considered to be a moderate pest. Where they are allowed to damage vegetation and cause erosion, the impact on the environment can be detrimental, and for that reason can be considered a serious environmental threat. However, because they also have cultural and potential economic value, the management of Brumbies presents a complex issue.
Brumbies roaming in the Australian Alps of south-eastern Australia are thought to be descendants of horses which were owned by the pastoralist and pioneer, Benjamin Boyd.
In Victoria, feral horses occur in alpine and adjacent areas, mostly in the Eastern Alps Unit of the Alpine National Park and adjacent conservation reserves, State Forest and forested freehold lands, primarily east of the Benambra-Corryong Road. A small population occurs on the south-western fall of the Bogong High Plains. There are scattered records of individuals or small mobs from elsewhere in the alpine area and East Gippsland. The feral horse populations in the Cobberas-Tingaringy area are contiguous with populations in New South Wales.
Feral horse management in Victorian and New South Wales national parks
Since 2004, 1,524 horses (419 trapped and 1,105 roped) have been removed from the Alpine national park in Victoria. The Victorian government is preparing a draft wild horse management plan based on the advice of a roundtable group which included horse advocates, conservationists, animal welfare groups and national parks. It reached agreement on methods such as trapping and mustering horses for culling but could not reach unanimous agreement on aerial or ground shooting. When the draft is released, it will be open for public comment for 60 days.
The New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has just opened its public consultation process that will inform its next wild horse management plan. Since 2002, NPWS has removed more than 2,600 horses from the Kosciuszko national park through passive trapping, where horses voluntarily enter a yard. Of those, about one third are re-homed. The rest are sent to the abattoir.