ABA Media Release 7 July 2023
The recent study Use of density-impact functions to inform and improve environmental out-comes of feral horse management (Berman et al. 2023), published by Wildlife Biology, has upturned negative claims about the environmental impacts of Alpine horses and how best to help native species.
Central to the new research is the premise that to better manage wild horses in the environment it is important to understand the relationship between horse density and the percentage of environmental impact attributed to horses.
A key finding from the density-impact work is that, in the areas studied, below a density of 200-250 faecal piles per hectare, or 9 horses per square kilometre, minimal impacts (<2%) are observed, however, above this threshold, impacts increase exponentially.
Therefore, in areas that are below the threshold number of horses, culling horses will do nothing to change environmental outcomes. Essentially all of the Bogong High Plains is below this threshold.
