Mass cull of the wild mountain horses

Australia’s ‘Snowy River’ brumbies were immortalised in poetry and on film, but now state officials propose shooting 5,000 animals

The Snowy Mountain brumbies are the descendants of mares and stallions imported by British settlers 200 years ago. Australia is thought to be home to more than half a million wild horses, but the alpine animals, in particular, have caught the imagination of generations IN THE alpine plains and woodlands of south-east Australia, herds of wild horses can sometimes be seen threading their way through the mountains, ignoring the cold as they lap at icy rivers or graze on the frost-covered grass.

These are Australia’s famous Snowy Mountains brumbies – the descendants of mares and stallions imported by British settlers 200 years ago.

Australia has between 400,000 and 1 million brumbies spread across the mainland – the largest population of wild horses in the world. They have survived and thrived in vastly different landscapes, from the outback, to snowcovered mountains and thick bush. They have been used by stockmen and farmers and as police horses, and were deployed by the military in the Boer, First and Second World Wars.

The brumbies of the Snowy Mountains, in particular, have developed a near-mythical status, helped by

the 19th-century poem by Banjo Paterson, which inspired a 1982 film with Kirk Douglas.

But their future in this mountainous region, 300 miles from Sydney, is uncertain. The New South Wales state government wants to cull more than 5,000 of the area’s estimated 6,000 horses, potentially deploying armed rangers to shoot them. Numbers are due to be reduced to 3,000 in the next five to 10 years, and to just 600 within two decades.

Public submissions on the government’s “wild horse management plan” close on Friday, before it finalises its arrangements for the proposed cull.

The move, designed to protect native species, has prompted angry protests from local bushmen and riders.

“This is so cruel – the plan should be abandoned,” said Leisa Caldwell, 54, a former brumby runner who has caught them in the wild and tamed them. “These horses have learnt to live in the mountains. They’re very tough, they’re very intelligent. They have been in the mountains ever since white man has been here.” Earlier this month, hundreds of demonstrators, some on horseback, marched and rode into the centre of Sydney to protest.

“The recommendations made for managing the horse numbers in the future are barbaric,” said Peter Cochran, of Snowy Mountains bush users group. “They talk about shooting horses, [but] not what they’ll do with the carcasses.”

The government, largely supported by ecologists, says the horse population – which left unchecked could grow 6 per cent a year – is damaging natural waterways and bogs and endangering whole species of rats and frogs.

The state has proposed various methods for reducing the numbers – from trapping and mustering them and finding them new homes, to fertility control and ground shooting. Mark Speakman, the state’s environment minister, said humane culling methods could be used effectively. Other regions already conduct limited culls.

“There is a lot of wishful thinking in the minds of some people who have this emotional attachment to wild horses that they aren’t causing significant damage,” he said. “As I understand it, an expert shooting at the cranium of a horse can kill it in eight or nine seconds so there is very, very little suffering.”

Mrs Caldwell, whose husband is a sixth-generation descendant of the region’s early settlers, pledged to continue fighting to prevent the cull.

“I don’t believe they are a threat to any animal species,” she said. “The horses have been there for 180 years.”