MEDIA ALERT
FEDERAL COURT GIVES GO AHEAD FOR VICTORIA’S ALPINE BRUMBIES TO BE ANNIHILATED
Friday 8th May 2020
Main stories:
1. Today in the Federal Court of Australia at Melbourne, the Australian Brumby Alliance (ABA) has lost its attempt to save Victoria’s Alpine Brumbies in a landmark case against Parks Victoria.
Case: Australian Brumby Alliance Inc v Parks Victoria.
Federal Court Case No.: VID1569/2018.
2. Parks Victoria now intends to start “ground shooting” Brumbies in (an activity that Parks Victoria acknowledges is unpopular in the community, and an activity that its existing management plan expressly promises will not occur) for the purpose of managing populations.
3. After the court’s decision was released, the ABA sought a stay of the orders, to prevent Parks Victoria from shooting or otherwise significantly impacting Brumby populations during the 28 day appeal period. But that pathway was opposed by Parks Victoria, whose representative said that Parks Victoria intend to “immediately” start removing the historic Brumby populations from the Bogong High Plains. Justice O’Bryan stayed his orders for a period of 5 calendar days, to enable the ABA that much time to apply for an injunction to
restrain the activities of Parks Victoria during the 28 day appeal period.
4. The ABA contends that Parks Victoria’s intended eradication of Victoria’s Brumby populations, which have lived in the same areas for 150 years, is based on flawed science, for example; during the proceedings, the expert witnesses exposed many flaws in the scientific report that had formed the basis for Park Victoria’s plan to eradicate all Brumbies in the Bogong High Plains, neither factor in the 300 or more deer for every Brumby in the Alpine National Park, and little to no effort was made by Parks Victoria to distinguish between the impact of deer, and the impact of Brumbies.
5. There is ground breaking ecological research currently being conducted in Victoria’s Alpine National Park (headed by leading ecologist Dr David Berman of USQ) to determine the ecological impact of the Brumbies. That research is expected to produce an interim report at
the end of 2020 and to be complete in 2024. The ABA believes that there is genuine potential for that research to prove that Parks Victoria should be more interested in keeping numbers of Brumbies to sustainable levels, rather than exterminating Victoria’s Brumby populations outright. Nonetheless Parks Victoria do not want to wait for that research to be released. They want to start exterminating Victoria’s Brumby populations immediately.
Download/view the full Media Release:
FEDERAL COURT GIVES GO AHEAD FOR VICTORIA’S ALPINE BRUMBIES TO BE ANNIHILATED
