Feral horses trample endangered plant communities, destroy threatened species’ habitat and damage Aboriginal cultural heritage — and their numbers are increasing.
A feral donkey in the Sonoran Desert.
Michael Lundgren
Victoria’s plan has flaws, but it’s still likely to bring the feral horse problem under control, and will do a lot better than the very low benchmark set by NSW.
Compassionate conservationists believe no animal should be killed in the name of conservation. This idea is a death knell for Australia’s native species.
A brush-tailed rabbit-rat, one of the small mammals disappearing in northern Australia.
Cara Penton
Small mammals in northern Australia have been rapidly vanishing for the last 30 years, and scientists weren’t sure why. Now, a major new study found feral livestock are largely to blame.
Without an emergency cull of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, the land cannot recover from the bushfires – and threatened species are at grave risk of being annihilated.
Feral horses are a growing problem for the NSW government.
Shutterstock/Constantin Stanciu
Feral horses are a clear point of division between parties in this weekend’s election. Labor has pledged to repeal the Coalition government’s bill to preserve large numbers of brumbies.
An 1870 news report said wild horses were “hated and shot by all”. What has changed since?
AAP Image
Brumbies have a devoted following among high country locals, despite the fact that they were despised by colonial settler farmers. Their mythical status today owes a lot to cultural figures such as Banjo Paterson.
Feral horse damage on the Australian Alps Walking Track, Bill Jones Hut, May 2018.
D Thompson/Flickr
Failing to cull feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park may end up promoting environmental destruction while actually increasing the horses’ suffering.
Victoria’s new plan to control feral horses aims to remove up to 400 a year from the eastern Alps. But without considering aerial culling, the plan seems unlikely to get to grips with the problem.