A report by the Secretary of the Department of Planning and Environment released late last week found that,if current methods did not remove enough brumbies,,including aerial shooting,might need to be considered.
Authorities in NSW have generally avoided shooting horses following an outcry in 2000 after. The practice is permitted on other feral animals,including pigs and deer. In other jurisdictions,including the ACT,aerial shooting is permitted.
The report made several recommendations about the park’s management plan. Among them was that continued monitoring of brumby removal was needed,and that alternative control methods be considered if it was falling short of the required numbers.
“However,given the potential for welfare outcomes to be improved with the method,the feasibility and public acceptability should continue to be assessed,particularly in reviews of the plan,” it notes.
Jack Gough,acting conservation director at the Invasive Species Council,urged the government to conduct a limited trial of aerial shooting of feral horses overseen by independent animal welfare experts,such as the RSPCA.
“Every year the NSW government fails to meet targets to reduce the population the job gets harder and ultimately more feral horses have to be culled to protect our national park and our wildlife,” he said.
“In recent years Australians have become better informed about the damage that feral horses are doing to our wildlife and fragile alpine wetlands and streams. We have a choice to make between feral horses or a thriving national park. We can’t have both.
“There is broad acceptance of the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are needed to cull the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and native wildlife will die.”
Under the current management plan for the park,NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) officers trap and rehome horses or muster them into yards where they are then killed.
Despite the report’s recommendation,an NPWS spokesperson said it would not consider resuming aerial shooting.
How brumbies are dealt with is a hugely controversial issue,with pro-brumby groups arguing current methods are inhumane.
The NSW government published data last week that showed feral horse populations in Kosciuszko National Park were up to 18,814 in the park,a sharp increase from the estimate of In 2016,there were only 6000 in the park. The government’s management plan states it will aim to reduce the wild horse population to.
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Australian Brumby Alliance president Jill Pickering said another option could be fertility control of mares. This would prevent them from giving birth for a few years.
“There are alternative methods that are doable apart from shooting,” she said.
“It’s not black and white. The sad reality is that if they had acted in NSW when the numbers were 6000 it would have been incredibly east to deal with them through trapping,rehoming and fertility control. But they stalled and refused to do so and the numbers have risen.
“Everyone is reactionary and that’s not a recipe for resolving the issue. If we could only get rid of the emotion and talk sense and logic and togetherness,then all of a sudden,there would be a whole lot of people ready to help.”
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