Aerial culling needed to reduce growing feral horse numbers, inquiry hears

The inquiry initially heard from a group of scientists who said there was a need for a federally-endorsed management body and regional plan.

Deakin University's Professor of Terrestrial Ecology Don Driscoll said aerial culling had been excluded in parts of the Australian Alps "mainly for political and alarmist regions," but argued that it was appropriate for ethical and financial reasons.

"The scale of the problem that we need to deal with now urgently, [is that] we really need to incorporate aerial culling," he said.

He said park staff processes of trapping, reshipping and re-homing feral horses have had minimal impact with the most horses going through that process in a year being less than 1000 horses and populations were increasing by 17 per cent a year and with "compounding growth" of 3700 in the last year.

"The population [of feral horses] is growing at multiple thousands per year," he said.

"The methods that are used are totally inadequate in reducing horse numbers."

Dr Driscoll said it "beggared belief" that feral horses have been a priority in an area that houses a number of critical native species.

PhD candidate at the Fenner School of Environment and Society Renee Hartley, who had undertaken conservation research throughout the Australian Alps said rapid removal was the absolute priority to mitigate the impact of feral horses throughout the region.

"There has been some responses in terms of mitigating impacts in the absence of effective removal and that is to put up fencing to exclude horses to protect habitat and to maintain some threatened species populations," she said.

"But that is not a long term or broad scale solution."

Current Mountain Cattlemen's Association of Victoria (MCAV) president Cass McCormack told Stock & Land that trapping was a method "which a lot of cattlemen have done for years," and supported it's continued use.

Past MCAV president Bruce McCormack also said cattlemen could effectively control feral horse numbers and population numbers have exploded since licenses were taken away in 2006.

"We believe [feral horses] need to be managed, there's too many up there, but the way they doing that and shooting them from the choppers, we don't believe in that," he said.

"When you took the cattlemen away you took away control of the brumbies.

"Now we feel they should be controlled, and the cattlemen would put their hands up and do it but they don't want us near the place."

Feral horse researcher with the University of Southern Queensland David Berman told the inquiry that management in the Alps needed to be based on impact and not horse numbers.

He said a recently published paper he authored focusing on the Bogong High Plains showed that 99pc of the area that researchers walked across showed there was extremely low impact from feral horses and that more resources should be focused on the East Victorian Alps, where impact was higher.

He also said the community also needed to be "adequately engaged" in feral horse management.

"I think that there is a need for increased resources, so that these things aren't token efforts," Dr Berman said.

However, he was questioned by Independant Senator David Pocock about his research being partly funded by the pro-advocacy group Australian Brumby Alliance.

Dr Berman said it his research was "not a conflict of interest," and that the research was done with a spirit of community engagement.

Public Service Association organiser Kim de Govrik also spoke at the senate inquiry about park rangers' view on culling feral horses.

Mr de Govrik, who has worked as a park ranger most of his career and had undertaken aerial shooting for other pests, said options were running out when "extremely stressed" horses were trapped.

"They're not actually being re-homed, they're going to the knackery," he said.

Mr de Govrik said feral horse culling had been an emotive subject for rural communities.

"What amazes me is no-one raises an eyebrow at destroying feral pigs, goats, wild dogs, foxes, but as soon as a wild horse is destroyed, there's uproar," he said.

He said many farmers wanted "this job done" and national park staff had obligation to responsibly manage vertebrate pests.

"Any vertebrate pest whether it's deer, goats, wild dogs, pigs or horses are moving onto their crops and having an impact," Mr de Govrik said.

Public Service Union national industrial and research officer Shay Deguara told the inquiry there were also safety concerns for national park staff over the issue.

Last year, letters were sent to a National Parks and Wildlife Service office threatening to firebomb it, and in May a decapitated horse head was left at the foyer of a Jindabyne visitor centre.

"We are seeing digital stalking equipment such as hidden cameras used to weaponise antagonism to [park] workers doing their job and their families," Mr Deguara said.