Mountain cattleman’s mission to save Victoria’s brumbies

An eleventh-hour mission has been hatched to save as many as 100 brumbies living on Victoria’s Bogong High Plains from a ground cull due to begin next week.

Brumbies living in Victoria’s North East will be shot as part of a Parks Victoria alpine feral horse management plan from next week. Picture: Ryan Maddison

A FORMER mountain cattleman from Victoria’s North East will take to the state’s Alps next week to capture and temporarily rehome as many as 100 brumbies in a last-ditch attempt to save the wild horses from a Parks Victoria ground cull beginning on Monday.

Phil Maguire has enlisted the help of more than 20 experienced horsemen and women to muster as many wild horses living on the Bogong High Plains as they can find to save them from the resumption of a horse-control program that has been halted for 18 months while the protected status of the brumbies has been debated in the Federal Court.

A judgment handed down by Justice Michael O’Bryan earlier this month in favour of Parks Victoria’s parks management plan will see the resumption of culling begin across Victoria’s Alpine region on Monday.

Mr Maguire said the difficult and potentially futile plan was essential to save Australia’s horse heritage, and was backed by thousands across the country who have reached out to offer their support.

“There are no guarantees we’ll get them all, or even a few of them. But we’re not going to leave them there for Parks Victoria to shoot. These brumbies are heritage listed and they have a genetic link to the Young and McNamara (early settler) families,” Mr Maguire said.

Any captured horses will be homed on his property 10km from the Bogong High Plains and returned once the culling program has been called off.

Mr Maguire, a former mountain cattleman from Omeo who held grazing licences on the southern Bogong High Plains and in state forest surrounding the park, said he has been inundated with people volunteering to help muster or shelter the horses. As a precautionary measure amid the coronavirus pandemic however, a smaller team will leave next week on what is expected to be a 10-day operation.

The Australian Brumby Alliance has claimed most of the damaged wreaked on national parks was caused by deer, which outnumber horses 300 to one.

ABA president Jill Pickering said the Federal Court’s decision could see the Victorian Alps stripped of its brumby populations entirely. The alliance is urging for a sustainable number of the wild horses to be left living on the Alps in recognition of their heritage value and contribution to Australia’s history.

Parks Victoria’s own estimates put the number of horses in the Eastern Victorian Alps at 2350, with another 80-100 in the Bogong High Plains.

In contrast, the Victorian Government’s draft Deer Management Strategy estimates the population of sambar, fallow, red and hog deer at “between several hundred thousand up to one million or more”.

“We’re happy to have the numbers reduced provided it’s by fertility control and passive trapping when there is an option for them to be rehomed. We do not support ground or aerial shooting,” Ms Pickering said.

“But Parks Victoria refuse to leave any brumbies in the park, because according to their flawed study, even one brumby can cause so much damage it shouldn’t be there, which is pathetic.”

A Parks Victoria statement said a comprehensive aerial survey across the Australian Alps conducted over the past 18 months found a significant increase in feral horse numbers, from 9000 to 24,000 horses over five years, in part due to the suspension of the feral horse management operation.

Small team operations will be deployed into high-conservation priority locations where ground-based professional shooters will use thermal imaging and noise suppressors to cull free-ranging feral horses under strict animal welfare protocols.

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