The term ‘Brumby’ is a contested appellation because opponents of wild horses, refer to them as ‘feral horses’.  Unfortunately in Australia ‘feral” animals are not protected by legislation instead they are to be “managed to extinction”.

However, through specific and coordinated lobbying from animal welfare groups, there is a political push to change how non-native species are viewed and treated.

Brumbies occur over much of Australia but currently, the most heavily debated issue is how the government manages their populations.

There are population management plans in place across several states in Australia.

These plans were created with consultations with local communities and formalized by various government agencies.

Unfortunately, government departments are acting outside of the plans and secretive shooting campaigns of Brumbies are happening even though there is the possibility of concerned citizens adopting and rehoming Brumbies.

WE WILL ALWAYS TELL YOU IF WE USE GRAPHIC, GORY PICTURES THAT MAY BE TRIGGERING TO SOME.  THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TIMES, THERE ARE PICTURES OF DEAD HORSES BELOW.

 To cull or not? 

The government of Australia has killed or removed nearly all the dingos in national parks.  The decline in these apex predators has created a population explosion of non-native animals.

After much lobbying by the Aboriginal groups who manage lands within the National parks in Victoria, plans are underway to reintroduce the dingo.

The brumby issue is focused on the Alpine National Park which crosses two states, and Kosciuszko National Park (KNP). 

Read the article here.

Both state governments want Brumbies culled from all national parks.

However, shooting as a method is flawed when they leave dead bodies on the ground as it attracts predators and contaminates waterways.

Culling often involves shooting horses; if the shooter is not 100% accurate, shooting does NOT result in instantaneous death.  Therefore shooting is NOT humane. (Shooting from the air is currently illegal in NSW.)

Horses are flight animals, they are extremely sensitive, wild horses are more so, they move, they are very quick and move in family groups.

It is nearly impossible to humanely shoot a Brumby in the wild, especially in the KNP given the land’s topography.

Contraceptive darting prevents mares from conceiving, thereby controlling the number of horses. Indeed shooting darts would be far more humane than shooting to kill.

Contraceptive darting is a proven successful management tool, it is financially sustainable and generally accepted by all stakeholders. Some states in the USA along with New Zealand have implemented this process.

Learn about the GONACON EQUINE – KAIMANAWA WILD HORSE CONTRACEPTION PROGRAMME here.

There currently are population management plans in place.  Plans to by all stakeholders, including government agencies, locals, and Brumby rescue groups.

The issue is government agencies resort to lethal population management techniques when the plan clearly states rehoming is to be explored as a first option. 

Again, shooting is cruel because horses do not stand still — they don’t wait to be shot.

In the past, there has been such outrage from aerial culling, for example shooting from the air, that NSW has banned aerial culling entirely.

The bushfires of 2019 ravaged areas inhabited by brumby herds and many herds were also ravaged.

Since 2019 Brumby advocates have been demanding a new aerial survey to establish accurate numbers.

An aerial survey was done of a small area and then the numbers of brumbies seen were extrapolated to the entire area.

The first number was 25,000 and since it was established that brumbies do not have litters of foals, the number had to be revised…

Whereas the number is now around 14,000.

Again this is contested by Brumby advocates and locals whose ancestors have lived in the area for generations and claim the number is between 1000-3000.

An independent aerial survey was also done by Brumby advocates and the figure sighted is 950.

You cannot count wild horses in a small area and extrapolate to the rest of the Park, because they live in families, are nomadic and graze in a mosaic pattern.

Brumbies are also (illegally) removed from the park by individuals and sent directly to slaughter.

The meat is thought to be safe and in theory, Brumbies should not have any medication or poisons in their systems.

However, recently there was a contaminated meat scandal in NT.

It was discovered that Brumbies slaughtered for dog food consumed a weed, making their meat toxic and deadly for dogs.

Brumby advocates point to large numbers of deer, wild dogs and pigs and claim that damage by these animals has been used to blame brumbies and call for their eradication.

Australian Brumby Alliance submitted the following :

Brumbies in perspective: Relative horse, deer, and pig numbers

The Victorian Auditor-General’s 2016 report highlighted significant concerns directly related to Parks Victoria, such as their…

Inability to recognise and act on emerging threats (see news examples below) and their…

Inability to evaluate actions to inform and improve further planning

News examples:

2015 – Environmental damage increasing with Victoria’s rapidly expanding deer population

2018 – Deer populations in south-east Australia soaring with an estimated 1 million in Victoria alone, wreaking havoc on farms and the environment

2019 – Deer invasion expected to worsen with estimations Victoria’s deer population of about 1 million is growing by 30% annually

2020 – Victorian Deer Management Strategy released (for sustainable deer populations)

The Brumby “issue” has been hotly debated for years and recently a tender by the National Parks and Wildlife Service gave shooters the ability to shoot brumbies.

According to the Standard Operating Procedures, this is supposed to be humane, however, anyone that understands horses will know that the SOPs are flawed and it is not possible to shoot a whole herd with head or heart shots that kill instantly. 

In September 2022, there was outrage because a whole herd of brumbies was slaughtered with military-style precision.

These were a well-known mob from Kiandra and included pregnant mares.

People who know this mob have photographed the wounds and claim they died slowly from bleeding out.

There was a population management plan in place where shooting was NOT an option.

Parks employed professional shooters to shoot and kill (and leave the bodies to rot) a large number of brumbies.

The parks did this OUTSIDE of the plan and they also did this INSIDE a brumby retention zone.

It appears that cowboys were employed to gun down a very beloved herd in Kiandra in a cruel way injuring them and letting them die slowly.

People on the ground documented the gunshots and were able to prove that these horses died slowly.

There are multiple photos of pregnant mares with full-term foals being aborted as the mothers lay dying.

It is alleged that NPWS have prevented these photos from being shared on social media because they are reporting the posts as graphic and violating community standards.

A prominent journalist, Ray Hadley, has been covering this massacre and the consequent cover-up on his morning show.

Long trails of blood showed the horses did not die quickly; they suffered long slow deaths, and the shooting caused three pregnant mares to spontaneously abort their foals.

We have just learnt that the bloodbath didn’t end there, with further shootings being revealed.

We demand an Inquiry into this government sanctioned cruelty.

While being culled by being shot, in some cases, mares aborted their foals. As their mothers gave birth while dying and could not protect the babies, the faces and heads of live foals were chewed off by wild dogs, and eyes were picked out by birds.

Photo with kind permission, Maret Rose.

Advocates of brumby culls have been very successful in framing brumby advocates as anti-science and emotive and attached to books and movies in an unreasonable way.

It is true that some brumby advocates are driven by a childhood reading of the Silver Brumby books by Elyne Mitchell.  There is however plenty of ecologists that dispute the science that drives the culling of brumbies.

These people who do not care that brumbies are slaughtered in inhumane ways, cling to their narrative that brumby advocates are anti-science and that is not true.

Many people who advocate humane methods of protecting fragile alpine habitats are experts in brumbies and have a scientific background, however…

It appears that the Invasive Species Council has hijacked the debate successfully and has persuaded many people that :

• Brumby advocates are anti-science
• Are motivated by emotion
• Lack critical thinking skills
• Are attached to a children’s book series and a poem by Banjo Paterson and the movie, The Man from Snowy River

From an observer..

The feeding of wild dogs and pigs is a very illogical outcome of shooting because the slain brumby bodies are food for animals considered feral.

Feeding wild dogs and pigs with slain horses is not only contrary to the proposed reason for getting rid of brumbies, but it increases the populations of both wild dogs and pigs by aiding them in having and supporting larger litters. 

Whereas a mare can produce one foal in a good year, wild pigs produce an average of 6 piglets per litter increasing to 12-13 when the food supply is plentiful.

Wild dogs produce 4 to 6 pups per litter.

In the long term, a population explosion of feral predators, such as wild dogs and pigs will do far more damage to native species.

Classifications are arbitrary.  

For example, because humans hunt deer and trout (species that were introduced and are not native to Australia) neither are considered feral.  In fact, deer are classified as wildlife because humans hunt them.

Deer hunting is a popular activity in Victoria. Deer introduced by acclimatization societies have been recorded in the wild in Victoria since at least the 1860s.

Today Victoria has a large deer population.

Predominately made up of sambar, fallow and red deer.

Most deer hunting occurs in the east of the state, reflecting the main deer distribution in Victoria.

The large population of deer in Victoria means that except for hog deer, there is no bag limit for deer.  

There is also no closed season for deer, except for hog and sambar deer hunting with hounds.

For the purposes of the Wildlife Act of 1975,  all deer in Victoria are considered to be wildlife.  Wildlife are further considered to be protected wildlife and may not be destroyed without authorization.

New research has identified invasive fish such as trout and eastern gambusia as the most significant threats facing Australia’s most vulnerable native fish species.

The research warns that if current management approaches are continued 22 native Australian fish species will likely become extinct in the next 2 decades.

Of the invasive species known to affect Australia’s 22 most at-risk native fish species, invasive trout, (Salmo trutta, Oncorhynchus mykiss) pose the greatest threat, followed by eastern gambusia (Gambusia holbrooki).  

"The brumby is being scapegoated -- using disproven science for those who have a vested interest in expanding industry in the park."

- Brumby Save Advocate