Australian Atheists Forum

Conservationists have welcomed new NSW Government data that reveals more wild horses, or brumbies, have been removed from Kosciuszko National Park (KNP) in the past 11 months, since aerial culling methods were introduced, than in the previous 21 years combined.

In evidence tabled at last week’s NSW Upper House inquiry into aerial shooting of wild horses in KNP, the National Parks and Wildlife Association (NPWS) confirmed a total of 8718 wild horses had been culled from the park since November 2021, when the KNP Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan came into force.

But in the past 11 months, of the 7111 wild horses removed, 5539 of those were culled using aerial shooting methods, approved for use in October 2023.

According to the Invasive Species Council (ISC), the figures represent a 24-fold increase in the annual average removal rate of 288 wild horses, since the NSW Government trapping program began in 2003, which saw a total of 6084 horses removed as annual population numbers surged.

ISC advocacy director Jack Gough said that, for the first time, the number of horses removed from the park would exceed the annual growth in horse populations, giving hope a major threat to under-pressure ecosystems was starting to be addressed.

“This is great news for our native animals and mountain streams,” he said. “Of course, there is still a long way to go before our native wildlife will finally be safe and can recover from years of damage.

Professional shooters are killing more than 1,000 feral rabbits each night as numbers of the pest dramatically increase after good rain.

Mark Hancock from vertebrate pest control company River to Range said numbers had been increasing after three years of regular rainfall.

"It's not uncommon to drive past a paddock or a hill and you would swear that the ground was moving. There are just that many rabbits crawling across it," he said.

"We're shooting over a wide area. Some places [rabbits] are more dense than others, but it's at least a couple of hundred per night and we might get upwards of 1,400 to 1,500 on a big night."