Grazier in for the long haul to save Victoria’s brumbies
A grazier’s fight to save Victoria’s wild horses from roaming the alps will he heard in the Supreme Court this week, but critics say the hearing simply delays essential measures to drastically reduce their numbers.
AN Omeo grazier has pledged to fight for Victoria’s wild horses “until the end” ahead of a Supreme Court hearing yesterday to determine their fate.
Cattle farmer and horse adventure business owner Philip Maguire has applied to Victoria’s Supreme Court to have Parks Victoria’s plan to shoot feral horses in the East Alps and Bogong High Plains-Cobunga area declared invalid.
Mr Maguire was due to argue before Justice Steven Moore that Parks Victoria’s planned ground cull of feral horses contradicted its Feral Horse Strategic Action Plan 2018-2021, which explicitly stated “shooting … will not be used to control free-ranging feral horses”.
He is seeking an injunction to prevent Parks Victoria from going ahead with the shooting, which was due too begin on May 18 but has been pushed back to June 1 due to the court proceedings.
Animal rights solicitor Marilyn Nuske said Parks Victoria interpreted a federal-court decision earlier this month as a carte blanche to eradicate wild horses from the alps.
“The management plan says no shooting and sets up very clearly how to manage brumbies,” Ms Nuske said.
Parks Victoria successfully defended a case brought against it by the Australian Brumby Alliance in the Federal Court that removing brumbies would have an impact on the national heritage values of the Australian Alps.
Following the Judgement handed down earlier this month, Parks Victoria announced “additional techniques” would be employed to control horses. Small teams of professional shooters were to be deployed to high-conservation areas using noise suppressors and thermal imaging to shoot free-ranging horses.
“They took the Judgement in the federal court as a carte blanche but it had nothing to do with ecological values,” Ms Nuske said, stressing the case centred on whether removing the horses challenged cultural heritage values.
However Invasive Species Council chief executive Andrew Cox said Mr Maguire’s legal case was simply delaying the inevitable.
“Feral horses in the Alpine National Park are out of control and Parks Victoria need to be allowed to get on with the job,” Mr Cox said.
“The horses are tramping the alpine bogs, destroying the habitat of threatened plants and animals such as the broad-toothed rat and alpine she-oak lizard.”
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