NSW to sterilise wild horses as brumbies run amok

Wild brumbies running amok through the Kosciuszko National Park face being sterilised.

Wild horse numbers in the Kosciuszko National Park have increased over the past five years. Picture: Rohan Thomson

Wild brumbies running amok through the Kosciuszko National Park face being sterilised by the NSW government in a bid to bring their numbers down.

NSW Deputy Premier John ­Barilaro is cham­pioning the strategy­ following the release of a report outlining an alarming rise in feral horses roaming the Aust­ralian Alps.

The question of how to control the wild horses has long been a topic of fierce debate among envir­onmentalists, animal-welfare advocates and politicians.

Sterilisation would be used along with other measures, such as relocating horses to less envir­onmentally sensitive areas or ­­re-homi­ng them with families.

An new aerial survey suggest­ed such efforts have not been successful.

The research estimated that ­untamed horse population numbers had tripled over five years — from about 6000 in 2014 to 19,000 — in Kosciuszko National Park.

Mr Barilaro told The Australian he was committed to fertility controls as a humane and necessary measure, which would be trialled before a wider adoption.

A challenge would involve ­injections, which were hard to ­administer and needed to be ­repeated several times to be ­effective.

“This is … something I want to see,” said Mr Barilaro, cautioning that further testing would be necessary.

“If we want to seriously look at humane population-control meth­ods, fertility control is an obviou­s step forward and something I’d like to see investigated further.”

Known as immunocontraceptive vaccines, the technique would see horses administered with drugs that interfere with their ­reproductive system through an immune response.

Mr Barilaro, whose NSW elect­orate of Monaro takes in a large swath of brumby territory, has previously ruled out a cull, particularly the use of snipers to shoot the animals from heli­copters.

“I don’t want a repeat of the Guy Fawkes massacre,” he said, repeating his concerns about an October 2000 aerial cull of 606 brumbies that faced claims the horses were not killed quickly.

A subsequent report found the cull was carried out humanely, with just one horse found to have died slowly.

Last year the NSW government passed legislation that ­essentially enshrined the brumby as a protected species.

The bill, later dubbed the “Brumbies Bill”, prohibited culling and ended plans to reduce numbers by 90 per cent over 20 years.

This led to criticism from scientific bodies that abandoning the scheme would be disastrous for the environment.

Other concerns included that the proliferation of brumbies would be cruel as they would ­likely starve to death during drought. “I have never ruled out reducing the population of brumbies­ if the numbers show we need to,” Mr Barilaro said.

“What I have ruled out is aerial culling of wild brumbies.”

While brumbies remain culturally significant to many, they are also viewed as a pest: their hooves cause damage to creek banks and vegetation, they overgraze, and they are known to ­introduce weeds via seeds that they carry in their dung, mane and tails.

“While they are not as widespread as the rabbit, feral pigs and wild goats, they are nonetheless a serious pastoral pest that also cause significant environmental damage,” says a report on ­brumbies available on the Office of Environment and Heritage website.

Following the release of the report­ on Monday, NSW Envir­onment Minister Matt Kean said the population increase was unsustainabl­e.

He, too, has said he would work to reduce the brumby population humanely.

“The recent horse survey estim­ates that there are approximately 19,000 horses in the Kosciuszko National Park, compared to approximately 6000 horses in 2014,” Mr Kean said.

“These numbers are unacceptable and unsustainable for our natural environment.

“The NSW government will work with the community and scientific advisory committees to reduce the number of horses in the national park in a humane way.”

Current culling methods have involved trapping the animals and either moving them to less sensit­ive alpine areas or rehoming the horses as pets under a family adoption scheme.

Only a few dozen horses have been removed in recent months, a NSW budget estimates hearing heard in October.

An official from the NSW Parks and Wildlife Service confirme­d that 46 horses had been removed from the Kosciuszko National Park, of which 33 had been rehomed.

Another two horses had been euthanased and the remaining 11 were sent to the knackery.