A Senate inquiry has called on the New South Wales government to use aerial shooting to cull the growing number of feral horses damaging the environment in the Australian Alps.
The report, backed by Labor, Greens and independent senators, also recommended the Albanese government develop a national plan to limit the impact of about 25,000 feral horses in the high country, and boost funding to states and territories to improve alpine environment protection.
It found horses posed an extinction risk to native species, including the critically endangered stocky galaxias fish and the southern corroboree frog. The horses, sometimes described as brumbies, have been found to threaten plants and animals by grazing, trampling vegetation and damaging waterways.
“It has been made clear that if feral horse populations are not urgently managed, there is a real risk of losing this unique landscape and the native species that call it home,” the committee said.
The report said NSW laws protecting feral horses from culling had led to an exponential increase in the population. Data released earlier this year suggested the population grew by 4,000 over two years.
The committee recommended the state government address this in part by updating the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow aerial shooting to help control numbers.
The NSW government has already indicated it may head in this direction. In August it announced a new plan to deal with horse numbers, and recently began public consultation on allowing aerial culling to meet a commitment to cut the population within the state to 3,000 by mid-2027. The ACT and Victoria already allow aerial shooting, but Victoria has not used it.
Coalition senators on the committee published a dissenting report, arguing “the Australian brumby is an important icon of Australian culture” that had “coexisted with humans, and a multitude of other animal and plant species, for over 200 years”.
They accused the inquiry of relying on anecdotal data, and said aerial shooting should not be used until “all other control methods” – including fertility control, mustering and trapping, exclusion fencing and ground culling – had been tried.
The independent senator David Pocock, who instigated the inquiry with the support of the government and Greens, said the report documented compelling evidence of a catastrophic impact from feral horses, including threatening 12 plants and animals and the quality of 30% of the water in the Murray-Darling Basin.
He said all jurisdictions should adopt a “zero tolerance approach to feral horse management”.
“Horses are beautiful animals but the evidence to this inquiry documents beyond a doubt that they do not belong in our national parks,” he said.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, thanked the committee and said she would “work carefully through the recommendations”.
“I want feral horses removed from the Australian Alps,” she said. “I will continue to work with all the powers of the commonwealth and collaboratively with the states and territories to ensure that the precious plants and animals that call the Alps home are preserved for our kids and grandkids.”
The Invasive Species Council said the report showed urgent action was needed.
“With governments at all levels backing feral horse control we are optimistic,” the council’s advocacy manager, Jack Gough, said. “But unless aerial shooting is approved by [the NSW environment minister, Penny] Sharpe, and federal minister Plibersek is prepared to stump up serious funding, all this talk will not make a difference to the rapidly rising feral horse population.
“No one likes to see animals killed, but the sad reality is that we have a choice to make between urgently reducing the numbers of feral horses or accepting the destruction of sensitive alpine ecosystems and habitats, and the decline and extinction of native animals.”
Sharpe said the inquiry’s findings confirmed concerns the NSW government had about the impact of wild horses on Kosciuszko national park.
