Mountain men: Don’t kill alpine icon

A well-proven system of brumby management is under threat by bureaucrats who would rather see the horses dead, writes Charlie Lovick

THE mountains have been my family’s home since the 1800s – we have always felt a great love of them, a great respect for them, felt a great responsibility to them, as we have a great knowledge of them.

The alpine brumby is an icon of the Victorian High Country. The brumby has an iconic standing in the community and rightly so, many Australians, indeed people from around the world idolised them in The Man From Snowy River movies, The Silver Brumby books, and documentaries over many years.

A large portion of the public believe they should be retained in the alps, a true and much-loved Australian icon. Managed by people with bush knowledge not academic and bureaucratic bullshit.

They must be managed, and they have only one legitimate control measure — the great Australian horsemen and women. They managed them so well that it was never an environmental issue or overpopulation issue. It was managed at no cost to the government.

That changed when the Victorian Government declared the Alpine National Parks and policies of no introduced species, no hard-hoofed animals etc, plus a host of other draconian measures developed in the UK. This all came to a head in 2005 when the cattlemen and their cattle were outlawed in parks sections of the alps, along with brumby catching.

By Parks’ own admission, brumby numbers more than doubled in the next 10 years.

I have spent time as an invitee representing the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria on a Government Wild Horse Management advisory group. When I suggested that our group be called a Brumby Management group, Parks’ reaction was that the name was too emotive and the Government would have trouble convincing the public to accept their plan of total eradication of the iconic Australian brumby.

It soon became clear we were there to rubber stamp the Government’s real intentions through Parks Victoria to eradicate all brumbies from Victoria’s Alpine National Parks.

The MCAV was strongly opposed and put forward other options that had proven very successful over the last 100 years.

The truth is the horsemen who know the mountains and brumbies best and had lived their life in that environment were never asked to be involved. We have now lost the knowledge of legends, like Ken Connley and Dean Pendergast among others. We cannot afford to lose the next generation of knowledge, as bureaucrats, academics and greens want.

Who do you want to manage the brumbies? The bureaucrats that will shoot them or the knowledge, experience and passion of bush men and women who want to help manage them humanely and with a positive outcome for this iconic breed?

Everyone should remember that the Government and Parks Victoria do not own the bush. You and your family do — make your voice heard.

● Charlie Lovick is a well-known high country cattleman and former president of the Mountain Cattlemen’s Association of Victoria

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