NEWS AND OPINION: This morning, I am shocked at Australia’s further animal abuses but I am unsurprised because they’ve been shooting feral cats and foxes for ages while completely disregarding the cruelty of the practice.
And this morning, The Times reports on the shocking cruelty in the culling of Australia’s well-known wild horses, called brumbies. There are about 22,000 brumbies living in the southern Australian Alps which is the only part of an arid continent where they get regular winter snows. The authorities want the populations size sharply reduced to 3,000.
In that suitable habitat they roam the high plains and they are a symbol to many Australians of a wilder and freer Australia which existed many years ago.
Brumbies have been celebrated in verse and film. They are the descendants from horses brought to Australia by the early settlers from England. The same “invasive species” problem exists with rabbits and cats in Australia and the authorities simply don’t like them because they have prioritised to the highest level for a very long time the conservation of their native species.
And in this instance in order to protect their native species they need to protect the habitat of the species and they believe that brumbles are destroying habitat and so they are destroying brumbies in large numbers and in a very cruel way.
The Times reports that this week, large tracts of the Kosciusko National Park where these wild horses are found was shut to the public. And park rangers guarded entry roads while in the interior this mass cruelty took place.
The area encompasses 2700 mi² of wilderness. Marksman leaning out of helicopters with .308 calibre rifles began shooting horses targeting their heads but how can they hit a galloping horse’s head from a helicopter with any accuracy? And they are being inaccurate and causing an incredible amount of pain based upon the description that I read.
For example, official figures from a trial cull of 270 horses in 2023 indicated that some of them were shot up to 15 times 😡🥹. On average, a horse took seven bullets before dying! 🐎
This is not euthanasia. This is cruel slaughter by any means possible and the Australians do like to shoot their rifles at animals. You may know that they shoot millions of kangaroos. There must be an army of marksmen in Australia employed by the state governments to kill these animals.
So far more than 5,000 horses had been shot in this highly unpleasant, some would argue obscene, way. And we are told that this mass slaughter is “the culmination of years of campaigning by conservationists”. They argue that brumbles are an invasive species which destroy delicate alpine ecosystems.
And these conservationists of Australia’s native species (this is an act of speciesism) are in conflict with the people of the mountains who believe that the conservationists have used flawed science to support this project: the destruction of a much loved part of Australia’s heritage.
Peter Cochrane, 79, says that it is a betrayal of the animals that helped found modern Australia. He said that, “We had this cultural and spiritual connection with the land and the horses. And it’s been breached.”
About brumbies
Brumbies are descendants of horses brought by European settlers and are now wild. Here’s some interesting information about them:
- History and Heritage: Brumbies are seen as a symbol of Australian resilience, their ancestors having played a role in early exploration and settlement [Australian Brumby Alliance]. They are even featured in Australian currency and the iconic film The Man From Snowy River [Australian Brumby Alliance].
- Habitat and Numbers: Today, most brumbies are found in the vast and undeveloped regions of Northern Territory and Queensland, although they can be found in many parts of Australia [Wikipedia]. They live in groups called “mobs” or “bands” [Wikipedia].
- The Brumby Debate: Brumbies can be controversial. While some see them as a cherished part of Australia’s heritage, others argue that they damage native ecosystems because they are not part of the original fauna. There are efforts to manage brumby populations in a humane way. Comment: fail! Big time fail. This culling is anything but humane. It is gross cruelty.
