Saving the Australian Brumby
Some people think that out of all of the creatures on earth, humans do the most damage to the Earth. But the government in New South Wales, Australia, appears to consider another creature a greater threat to the world, and their response is causing international outrage.
The Australian government has decided to conduct a mass cull (a selective slaughter of wild animals) of Australian Brumbies, or wild horses, in the Kosciusko National Park in the Snowy Mountains region southwest of Sydney, Australia. This will cut the Brumbies’ numbers down from 6,000 to only 600. The government’s goal is to cull at least 90% of the population in 20 years, and they will keep the survivors in three closed-off regions. They released their plan on May 1, and it is open to public submissions until the beginning of July.
The idea of a Brumby cull is not only angering Australians, but equestrians and animal rights advocates throughout the world. The Australian Brumby has been a popular and much appreciated breed for many years due to their features in books, poems, and movies. One of their most famous appearances was in the poem “The Man from Snowy River,” which was made into a successful movie in 1982. Aside from literature and films, the Australian Brumbies are also famous for their role in the cavalry during the Boer War, World War I, and World War II.
Previous instances of culling the brumbies on a smaller scale have also been a source of controversy with Australian citizens, but the government’s current plans to kill such a large portion of this famous breed is proving to be particularly controversial.
The culling techniques will involve ground shooting, trapping, mustering (a roundup of livestock), and gelding stallions (fertility control). An aerial cull in 2000, which killed around 600 horses, was so reviled that it was banned in New South Wales, so that method will not be used in the upcoming event.
The government wants to cull 3,000 Brumbies, or half the population, in the next five to ten years. The government’s reasons for the cull are that the Brumbies’ numbers are out of control, and that they are destroying native flora and polluting rivers. Another reason the government wants to cull the Brumbies is that they are not a native species, but were originally brought to Australia 200 years ago by British settlers.
Many Australians are now fighting back, not satisfied with the government’s reasons for such a drastic cull of the Brumbies. They, and many other people throughout the world, believe that the horses do not know that they are damaging or endangering anything, and that it is not just Brumbies which are damaging the environment. They also believe that limiting the areas that the remaining Brumbies can live in is inappropriate because when they repopulate, they won’t have as much land in which to roam, resulting in worsened living conditions.
For more information on the culling controversy, read these articles:
There is also an online petition to stop the Brumby cull. To sign this petition, go to https://www.change.org/p/australian-government-stop-the-brumby-cull-in-australia.
