Brumby cull is vital for environment, say ecology experts

ABOUT 5000 wild brumbies in Victoria’s Alpine region should be culled to prevent more environmental damage, an ecology expert has said.

An ecology expert says 5000 wild brumbies in Victoria’s Alpine region should be culled.

ABOUT 5000 wild brumbies in Victoria’s sensitive Alpine region should be culled to prevent further environmental damage and a threat to endangered rodents and skinks, an ecology expert leading a group of 41 academics said.

Deakin University terrestrial ecology professor Don Driscoll has written to Premier Daniel Andrews and Environment Minister Liliana D’Ambrosio seeking support for the use of marksmen in helicopters to eradicate the wild brumby population, growing by up to 21 per cent per year, from the ­Alpine and Bogong High Plains in the state’s northeast.

“Victoria, to my knowledge, isn’t doing anything to deal with the problem,” Prof Driscoll said.

NSW has announced its intention to cull wild horses using ground shooting, trapping and sterilisation programs to reduce numbers in the Kosciuszko National Park from 6000 to 3000 over the next 10 years, before cutting the total to 600 in 20 years.

As well as environmental degradation, the NSW plan aims to protect the corroboree frog population.

NSW has announced its intention to cull wild horses using ground shooting, trapping and sterilisation programs. Picture: Stephen Cooper

But the academic group says because of high brumby reproduction rates, culling in Victoria should be more ­aggressive than the NSW plan.

Prof Driscoll said the cull was needed to save the Alpine water skink, she-oak skink and broad-toothed rodents as well as fragile vegetation.

He said there was no place for any feral horses in the 17 per cent of Victoria which authorities had a legal obligation to protect as national parks or other similar conservation zones.

“The big obvious impact is alpine stream sites, in areas where there are horses all that vegetation has gone and you are just left with this bare dust,” he said.

Prof Driscoll said aerial culling was the most efficient and humane way of eliminating the brumbies.

Capturing and rehoming them would allow only minimal population change and many horses were already dying of starvation yearly due to high numbers and limited food, he added.

A submission to NSW Premier Mike Baird and forwarded to the Victorian Government is signed by ecologists from 16 universities.

They say: “The changes in NSW have strong implications for Victoria. Without an urgent control program in Victoria, horse numbers will continue to rise and damage to our unique alpine species and ecosystems will continue to accrue.

“The longer this problem is left unmanaged, the more ­expensive it will be to fix.”

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