#brumby

CW: discussion about animal death, culling

I held off responding to this because I know there's some really intense feelings about this issue. And, as someone who grew up reading and watching The Silver Brumby and have even met and ridden brumbies - I feel that same outrage. No one wants to see these beautiful horses shot and killed.

But I'm also deeply saddened by the state of our politics and how the environmental impact of this introduced species has been completely disregarded in favor of a bizarre culture war, colonialist mythology and death threats towards environmentalists. Nothing which is safeguarding the welfare of the horses.

Simply put, the Australian landscape is not equipped to handle large hoofed mammals. The peatlands across Australia's alpine regions are incredible carbon sequesters - yet they are 45% less effective at absorbing carbon when brumbies have trampled through them.

The damage that these horses are doing to natural habitat is significant.

A visual example: to the left, no hoofed animals. To the right, hoofed animals

Brumbies damage the habitats of the critically endangered Corroboree Frog and other threatened frog species including Growling Grass Frogs, Alpine Tree Frogs and Dendy’s Toadlets.

What is happening is an introduced species, an animal that was brought over to Australia to colonise and kill the indigenous population, has now been romanticised into an icon of Australia. And is being given priority over the native species of the land - which are vital to the ecosystem.

And due to constant lobbying and blocking of culling under "cultural reasons", these horse populations have gotten out of control and are putting native species under the real threat of extinction.

The Australian Brumby Alliance and other lobby groups provide minimal evidence to support their claims that horses are not causing damage and seem to just use whataboutism's rather than refuting the environmental science reports with data

(Source)

Like... kangaroos are not tearing up the soil because they have padded feet. Thankfully, humans, bicycles and and vehicles are not tearing through the peatlands on a day to day basis - otherwise I'd say they would absolutely be considered an impact on the environment.

"Hoof-like" feet is doing a lot of work too given that you can look up Australia's megafauna and you won't find any with the same hooves as modern horses - or really any ungulate.

But, its not really about the actual environmental impacts of the horses. It's about the romantic ideal of them. I have no issue with people who want to conserve brumbies and gentle them and adopt them as a way to move them out of the high country. But clearly these methods are not effective enough in controlling these populations.

Aerial culling is an upsetting thing to think about - but an independent review did find that horses didn't suffer for prolonged periods of time the way people often claim.

It's a horrible thought and very very sad but also... we have to be careful about allowing colonial stories and mythology get in the way of a very well established body of research and large amounts of data indicating that the brumbies are detrimental to alpine ecosystems.

And I support any efforts into reducing brumby numbers without lethal culls through sterilization programs and bringing them into human care. But it just doesn't seem like those programs alone will cut it and culls will sometimes need to happen to preserve our very fragile alpine ecosystems and the native species that rely on them.

Study of a Brumby