The Australian Brumby Alliance Inc. (ABA) strongly objects to Parks Victoria (PV) calling for tender to
shoot Brumbies in the Vic Alps, Bogong High Plains and Barmah national parks1 while there are still
rehomers with space waiting to receive these sentient, wild horses – at this very moment,
PV’s statement of obligations2 explains that “effective communication with the community and key
stakeholders is critical to the successful development and delivery of major policies. This is best
practice. Poor practice is killing healthy horses when rehoming space exists, thus denying them any
domestic future; until PV call meeting of relevant stakeholders to see how rehoming can resume.
Parks Victoria’s current wild Horse management plans3 include:
- Enhancing opportunities for wild horses to be rehomed,
- horse population will be surveyed annually between May & August each year,
- Shooting operations will be overseen by expert equine veterinarians, and
Monitoring plan effectiveness to see IF these strategies are having a positive impact to
determine any change over time in association with management carried out.
PV claim to prioritise rehoming, but instead have suddenly stopped rehoming to begin shooting. The
current plan again falsely claims that low densities of horses can cause substantial damage in a short
time (Tolsma & Shannon 2018)4, despite the ABA court cross examination evidence that four study
field site notes that stated Deer only damage were changed to Horse only damage in the report.
Furthermore, the maximum impact increase in 10 years was just 2% and a few remaining sites up to
5% across an area where despite PV conducting two Deer shoot programs in the same horse study
area at that time, PV told the scientist to record horse – NOT deer evidence.
The ABA strongly urges Parks Victoria to NOT SHOOT until AFTER:
- Rehoming program are immediately reinstated, further EOI’s called for if needed, in order
to meet PV’s stated intent to maximise wild horse rehoming - Annual E.Alps, Bogong and Barmah horse counts are conducted and results made public.
- Monitoring results on any positive or negative impact on environmental health has occurred
after two years of shooting horses, deer, pigs and goats etc.
