Should brumby numbers be reduced dramatically in New South Wales and Victorian alpine national parks?
Introduction to the media issue
Video clip at right: On August 21, 2021, ABC News televised a segment looking at the difficulties in the way of establishing an effective management plan for wild horses in New South Wales alpine national parks.What they said...
'Alpine wetlands continue to degrade even with very small numbers of feral horses. Kosciusko cannot begin to recover from drought, extensive bushfires and overgrazing if, as currently proposed, 3,000 feral horses remain'
From an open letter to the New South Wales government signed by sixty-nine scientists and institutions
'Australia's alpine brumbies have...[a heritage] level of cultural significance in Australia and so should be protected'
Australian Brumby Alliance
The issue at a glance
On November 1, 2021, Parks Victoria announced its new plan for managing brumbies in the state's alpine national parks. Parks Victoria will remove the entire population of brumbies from the Bogong High Plains, and significantly increase the annual rate of removal of feral horses from the eastern Alps.
Under the new plan, aerial shooting will be used to cull brumbies if other methods fail to remove enough feral horses to reduce their ecological impact in the alpine region. Ground shooting by accredited operators will be continued in the latest plan, and authorities will establish and maintain small, fenced brumby exclusion sites to protect native species at high risk of extinction.
A month earlier, on October 1, 2021, New South Wales National Parks & Wildlife Service announced the release of its draft Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan. The proposed New South Wales plan would see horses culled or removed from some areas of the New South Wales park but allowed to remain in others. The proposal says the government would reduce the number of horses to 3,000 through measures including ground shooting and aerial mustering. It rules out aerial shooting.
There has been opposition to both plans from a variety of sources.
The New South Wales plan has similarly been opposed by those who claim it does not go far enough. The Invasive Species Council argues that though numbers will be reduced, and some areas cleared of horses, important areas will have to suffer permanent horse populations. Some opponents of the current plans argue that the horses should be removed entirely.
Others who oppose the plans include brumby support groups who argue either that the brumbies should be able to remain within the parks in larger numbers or that the methods proposed to remove them are inhumane.