Don’t shoot the wild brumbies, say Wonthaggi protesters

THERE aren’t any wild brumbies in Bass Coast or South Gippsland, to our knowledge.

But it was an issue that a group of Wonthaggi and district people felt passionate enough about last Friday to make a passive protest about, right on the corner of McBride Avenue and Graham streets.

Their spokesperson and event organiser Pamela Tucker acknowledged that many people locally don’t know about what she described as the cruel practice helicopter culls, but she said plenty of people overseas had picked up on it.

“People overseas know about Australia’s heritage around wild horses in the high country and they’re asking questions about the inhumane practices, which frankly, are a national disgrace,” Ms Tucker said last Friday.

“We’re not saying they shouldn’t be doing something about the increased numbers of brumbies in the national parks but there are plenty of other methods they could be using, like sterilising the horses or seeking to rehome them.

“Almost anything would be preferable to using 20 bullets to kill a galloping horse, and seeing some of them escape critically injured into the bush without any regard for whether they might have foals or be suffering.

“It’s also by no means clear that they doing to damage that the authorities say they are doing,” she said.

Ms Tucker and her supporters attended a recent rally in Yarragon where they undertook to spread the word, and that’s what Wonthaggi’s impromptu protest was all about.

Sporting a white plastic smock emblazoned with words including “atrocities”, “barbaric” and “cruel” while handing out a pamphlet headed “Better ways for Brumbies” there was no mistaking the message.

While much of the aerial culling activity has centred on the Kosciuszko National Park, where the NSW government claims numbers of wild horses have surged from an estimated 2131 in 2024, to anywhere between 6000 and 16,000 today, Ms Tucker says culls have been conducted in Victoria and they need to stop.

A Stock and Land article in May this year highlighted another serious problem associated with the aerial culling program.

“High country graziers warn a state-sanctioned buffet of red meat left behind by aerial brumby culls has triggered a dangerous explosion in wild dog and feral pig numbers, threatening livestock and biosecurity along the Victoria-NSW border.”

Quoting Don Driscoll, a professor in terrestrial ecology at Deakin University, Ms Tucker said there were ethics to be considered in killing horses which had to be done humanely.

“People need to know how cruel and inhumane these shooting practices are. It’s simply unacceptable and we’re going to continue to raise awareness,” said Ms Tucker, on behalf of her supporters.