Animals in Plague Proportions !

There is no doubt we have an escalating problem in our Kosciuszko National park.  Great herds of feral horses are destroying the bogs and streams that form part of the headwaters of the Murray/Darling rivers and there has been a hiatus in the programme to catch and relocate an estimated six hundred horses during the June and July window of opportunity.

Mustering wild horses can be dangerous and these winter months are usually the low point of the year for visitors to our alpine national park, and if the programme is carried out later it is more likely that the mares will be in foal.   Investigations show that many in this growing herd are in poor condition because the alpine meadows do not provide enough feed for the growing numbers,

The horse is an introduced species to Australia.  The early settlers brought horses and sheep to introduce a European lifestyle and this had a dramatic effect on soil compaction and the spread of unwanted horticulture.   What these animals ate was represented in their droppings and as they had the ability to roam over vast distances this pollution was widespread.

There are two distinctly separate problems.  Feral horses in the alpine high country of the Kosciuszko national park and feral Camels in the inland desert areas.  Both originated when animals escaped their masters and mated with fellow escapees to breed wild and free.  Both are reaching plague proportions and public opinion is sharply divided on how reduction in numbers should be handled.

There was a public outcry when the media ran pictures of marksmen in helicopters shooting horses to reduce the numbers.  It was inevitable that some would be wounded and face a painful and prolonged death and that approach was promptly banned.  In its place came a programme of containment and capture with the aim of domestication and a return to private ownership.   That is now awaiting the selection of members of an independent  community panel which is supposed to advise on this horse management programme.

That hiatus is purely political.   We are a nation of horse lovers and there is an adverse reaction to most plans that result in some form of extinction.  That ignores the damage horses are inflicting on the alpine park and the  competition camels have on both grass and water across the marginal grazing lands of our interior.   We also have a surplus of another introduced species - deer - in our national parks and this is intruding into the outer reaches of both Sydney and Wollongong.   It is not unusual for residents to find deer grazing in their gardens.

It is simply not possible to do nothing and allow these numbers to increase to the stage where sick and starving animals begin to self destruct.  Nature can be very cruel when it steps in to cull numbers out of step with the food supply.  A well planned human intervention would be the lesser end result to achieve the harmony of numbers.