Liz Bell
PUBLIC comment on Parks Victoria’s draft of the next action plan to tackle the feral horse problem and better protect the Alpine National Park will close in 10 days, on April 23.
Parks Victoria says the latest draft action plan has been developed based on the scientific evidence, management experience and expert input from the previous 2018-2021 Feral Horse Strategic Action Plan, which received more than 1000 submissions through extensive public consultation in 2017.
It is driven by “continued feral horse impacts on native alpine wildlife and habitats, extensive habitat loss from the Black Summer bushfires, and the limited progress to-date of the current management methods”.
But the issue of culling horses is proving difficult for the state government body, and is clouded by emotion and conflicting opinions.
The inclusion of aerial and ground shooting in the plan is undoubtedly the most contentious, with many animal welfare advocates calling on Parks Victoria to “lift its game” on re-homing horses.
While the “preferred” methods for managing feral horses under the draft Feral Horse Action Plan 2021 include trapping and re-homing, “tightly managed shooting” and the construction of exclusion fences, Parks Victoria wants to use aerial shooting where ground shooting is not feasible.
Critics have also criticised Parks Victoria for claiming there was a “limited response” to earlier public calls to re-home trapped brumbies.
Parks Victoria will allow approved landholders to take feral horses it has trapped, but says a submissions-of-interest program only received a small number of applications.
Jill Pickering from the Australian Brumby Association said the association believed the application process failed because Parks Victoria had not implemented a user-friendly application process or a manageable horse pick-up system.
“I don’t really think they (Parks Victoria) wanted it to work because it was quite difficult system – and when they first decided to do it there were no holding yards or infrastructure in place for people to get these horses they had trapped,” she said.
“I think in the end they did end up having to deliver some horses, but they would only go to east Gippsland.”
Bruthen brumby owner Jaquie Peachment is a staunch advocate of re-homing and believes another reason the re-homing opportunity wasn’t more widely taken up is because it was “poorly advertised”.
“You can’t say people didn’t want them if the message didn’t really get out,” she said.
“I certainly never saw any advertisements, or even heard of them.
“I definitely think that if more people knew they were being offered, they would have had a lot more applications.”
Parks Victoria has said it placed newspaper advertisements about the submissions-of-interest program, but with limited response.
Between December 2019 and September 2020, there were three rounds of public advertisements seeking expressions of interest to re-home feral horses.
There were more than 300 enquiries, but only 10 completed expressions of interest were followed through from suitable applicants.
The numbers of feral horses in the alpine areas has also been an issue of contention, with brumby advocates saying the numbers are inflated.
Parks Victoria estimates there are about 5000 feral horses in the Victorian Alps, making capture and re-homing not enough to significantly reduce feral horse populations in the eastern alps, with that figure doubling in the five year period from 2009 to 2019 from 2300 horses.
East Gippsland brumby horse breaker Ty Armstrong, a regular visitor to the alpine region, said he would estimate the numbers to be close to 2000 “at the top end”.
“I know there aren’t so many horses; I certainly dispute those numbers,” he said.
“Even on the plains they’re not so thick – maybe a third of what Parks Victoria says.”
Ms Peachment, previously a thoroughbred owner, said more effort should be focused on re-homing.
The former Melburnian took on two Alpine brumbies “straight from the mountain” several years ago, and said she was hooked from day one.
“I’d never have another type of horse now; these are just fantastic horses and so easy to manage,” she said.
“People hear the word ‘wild’ horse and think they are difficult – they are definitely not in my experience.”
Despite community concerns about animal welfare, the RSPCA has given the draft plan its qualified support, as long as the terrain is flat and only highly experienced and skilled shooters and pilots were used.
Parks Victoria says the feral horses have to be managed, with the high numbers in the alpine area continuing to cause damage.
It says the removal of all feral horses from the Bogong High Plains, plus the “significant reduction” in the Eastern Alps population will “maximise animal welfare outcomes”, meet community demand in providing captured horses to suitable re-homers, and protect threatened and threatened native plants, animals and ecological communities.
The draft Feral Horse Action Plan 2021 is open for public comment until Friday, April 23.
The Australian Brumby Association and the Victorian Brumby Association are urging people interested in the issue to make submissions. All submissions to the draft plan will be considered as part of developing the final Feral Horse Action Plan 2021, which will be submitted to the Energy, Environment and Climate Change Minister for review.
The draft plan is available at Engage Victoria.
