When I call – the night before he heads out bush to undertake a feral-cat trapping program (protecting the smoky mouse and mountain pygmy possum) – he sounds defeated. I want to shame them into caring for country.”.

It's estimated about 5000 brumbies are in the national park. An earlier hearing heard only 153 of the wild horses have been rehomed. Parks Victoria decided enough was enough. But that argument was dismissed by Justice Michael O'Bryan this morning in the Federal Court of Australia. However, Justice Steven Moore pointed out that, during the consultation, people voluntarily submitted their opinions about a potential cull. Connley puts it best: “If you wanted to guess the population of Victoria, you wouldn’t fly over the MCG on grand final day, and extrapolate your numbers from the people gathered on one acre in Melbourne.”. I point out how cattlemen often dismiss the value of moss beds and “sphagnum whatevers”, or mock the broad-toothed rat, whose existence is threatened by the brumby – along with the stocky galaxias fish and the southern corroboree frog.


"It's an awful situation that we've got ourselves into, it's a very sad situation," she said. The state government organisation says the animals damage the fragile alpine environment, including moss beds and fens. Under the Parks Victoria Act, there should have been engagement and consultation with communities about the planned cull, he said. “It can go either way, a bit like the Bible.

Mr McGuire said he had already rescued some wild horses in the area and had the capacity to look after 150 brumbies. The cull was meant to start on Monday after a legal battle gave Parks Victoria the go ahead. She was 60 when she saw her first brumby, on a horseback trek in Victoria. She pulls out her deck chair, sets herself up with her thermos of tea, waits for the mustangs, and just picks them off as they pass.”, Colleen O’Brien, who runs Brumby Junction – a sanctuary solely for brumbies, two hours west of Melbourne in Glenlogie – at a Save The Brumby protest at Parliment House in Melbourne.Credit:Josh Robenstone, O’Brien took this plan to Parks Victoria, offering to cover costs, volunteer staffing, and research engagement, but was turned down. “Here they come,” whispers Flannagan. “In Wyoming there’s a woman who’s 80, named Ada. If brumby sightings are down in a given week? Credit:Josh Robenstone, One scientist whose work the court did find persuasive, however, is botanist Dick Williams. "There is strong scientific evidence that [wild horses] are damaging the park's fragile alpine and sub-alpine environment," he said.

New South Wales Deputy Premier John Barilaro says Matt Kean’s call to cull brumbies from Kosciuszko National Park is a “green agenda” to see the decimation of the brumby population. “I’m completely fed up. “I was just captivated.”Credit:Josh Robenstone, Saving this part of our “national psyche” became a calling. If you’d like to view this content, please adjust your Cookie Settings.

Justine Curatolo, coordinator of the Protect Our Heritage Brumby Campaign said shooting the wild horses was not part of the original agreement. Thin moss clings to mottled branches. Fluffy almost, with a white rectangle on his forehead.

It’s like the ludicrous notions of anti-vaxxers – they’re immune to evidence. “And we don’t need people from the city coming up here, treating us with disrespect.

was unsuccessful in his Supreme Court bid last week. The New South Wales Government's decision to reverse a planned cull of brumbies in the Snowy Mountains has split communities across Victoria and NSW. I want to shame them into caring for country.”, Lewis Benedetti says he will keep coming up to the high country, pulling the big horse float he hopes to fill with sturdy little hooves.Credit:Josh Robenstone, Some of them already care deeply for country, of course, even if their perspectives diverge. In May 2018, NSW deputy premier John Barilaro introduced his “brumby bill” (The Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Bill), which formally recognised the historical significance of the brumbies, protecting them from slaughter.
It’s long overdue. What better life is there than that?”. Anglers Rest cattleman Philip Maguire was unsuccessful in his Supreme Court bid last week to prevent the ground shooting of brumbies in the Alpine National Park. “Cull’s probably begun.” If they see disturbed earth? Aerial culling of horses has been shelved ever since.

Current estimates put their population at 25,000 in the alps of both states – alarming, given the vast swaths of national park that burnt last summer. A former journalist for the Sunday Herald Sun, he wrote that poem in 1984, when he was a senior adviser to Peter Ross-Edwards – then leader of the Victorian National Party – the same year he helped organise the famous protest in which 304 mounted graziers converged on Melbourne’s Parliament House. Relocation is said to be the priority, but the government has not ruled the culling of some brumbies. Or is it ‘Thou shalt not kill?’ ”.

He knows the action’s on.”. “Look around you.”.

It’s a skill the 30-year-old horseman honed in nearby Buchan as a child from when he was nine, lassoing his letterbox after school. While I was in the high country, for instance, I watched in horror as a local grazier named Sonia Buckley – filming a documentary about brumbies – tore strips off a Good Weekend photographer over the most minor imagined slight.