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At the bottom of this page there is a video I made for an assignment about the brumbies
Last Month - October 2007 - 4000 Brumbies were shot by helicopter. There are plans for a further 10000 to also be culled in this way!!
After visiting the website I was alarmed to see that in Queensland just last month, 4000 brumbies were shot and killed by Helicopter. As was the case with the last culling, many of the horses did not die right away and were left to suffer painfully.
Two of the cruel cases included a brumby who was shot in the side and rump and left to die. The other was a mare who was shot and left to die in agony as her young foal stood next to her, waiting. There are two photos below of these cases.
The RSPCA supported the cull, saying it was 'nessessary.' But they didn't seem to think about the cruelty it is inflicting.
The news reports below the photos are taken from .
State of Queensland plans to shoot 10,000 'brumbies', claiming they damage fragile national park habitats
By Tom McTague
Published: 11 November 2007
The northern Australian state of Queensland plans to shoot 10,000 feral horses, known as brumbies, that it claims are damaging fragile habitats in national parks.
The Brisbane-based Courier Mail newspaper reported yesterday that the state government had instructed shooters in some areas to hide the bodies to conceal the extent of the cull. In an email exchange released under freedom of information laws, the Environment Minister, Lindy Nelson-Carr, told former Queensland premier Peter Beattie that the killing of horses "has the potential to precipitate vocal opposition from small special-interest groups with strong, inflexible views".
More than 4,000 feral horses have already been shot in the popular Carnarvon National Park in central Queensland, according to the newspaper, and there were plans to kill 10,000 more across the state. The cull has caused outrage across Australia, where the brumbie has etched itself into the national image.
The cull is being carried out by marksmen in helicopters, trained to shoot the horses in the chest, which the State Sustainability Minister, Andrew McNamara, said was the most humane option. Activists have claimed that many brumbies are left to die a slow, painful death. Jan Carter, a campaigner from Save the Brumbies, said: "The shooting of the horses is simply barbaric." A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said they "reluctantly accept some sort of cull, but we believe something should have been done years ago".
Pet plan to avoid horse cull
Michael Wray and Sophie Elsworth
November 11, 2007 11:00pm
MANY of Queensland's brumbies could be turned into pets and sold to pay for the management of wild horses, it was claimed yesterday.
The Courier-Mail revealed on Saturday that the state has been planning to covertly conduct one of the world's largest animal culls, with plans to slaughter 10,000 wild horses.
Killing wild horses? Have your say But Sunshine Coast brumby owner Anne Warmbrunn said the horses could be managed and would make perfect "pony club horses".
Yesterday she lifted her 7-year-old riding pupil Tylani Stokes atop Honey, a calm brumby that was running wild in NSW about 12 months ago.
"This little pony would make a great pony club pony," said Ms Warmbrunn, who paid $300 for Honey. "She has the perfect size, the perfect temperament, she's quiet, she's never kicked and never bucked."
Ms Warmbrunn said she believed a management plan could "break even", with trained brumbies sold to the public.
However, she said, the State Government had never made a real effort to manage the wild horses, which stand accused of degrading the environment.
More than 5700 people swamped the couriermail.com.au website to have their say about the planned cull. As of last night, voters overwhelmingly opposed the cull with 4400 people – or 77 per cent – of respondents opposing the slaughter and 1300 people – or 22 per cent – in support of the move.
Save the Brumbies spokeswoman Jan Carter has demanded a meeting to discuss the future of Queensland brumbies.
"I want a (roundtable) discussion with groups, including the DPI (Department of Primary Industries), RSPCA and the Queensland Government," she said. "We want to look at management plans and have the horses managed properly. There is so much land in Queensland, why can't they use it?"
Mrs Carter said several issues needed to be addressed before doing anything with the horses.
"They should look at if the brumbies are causing any environmental damage and (whether) the horses (are) starving," Mrs Carter said. "Then they need to be managed property – and it's not a quick-fix situation."
Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara said on Friday that shooting the horses was the most humane option.
He said the horses were causing serious erosion, spreading weeds, destroying freshwater springs and other water courses, damaging Aboriginal cultural sites, and competing with native wildlife for feed.
The killing fields
By Des Houghton
November 09, 2007 11:00pm
WE all love horses, don't we? Of course we do. They are the stuff of Aussie legend.
This great nation's indomitable spirit is somehow defined in Banjo Paterson's beloved brumbies running wild and free.
Courageous young Australians on brumbies stormed the Egyptian desert and into the hills of Palestine in an attempt to halt the Turkish advance.
The Australian 4th Light Horse Brigade charged more than 6km to overrun Turkish trenches.
Who didn't cheer on Tuesday when Michael Rodd steered his gutsy little grey horse to triumph over more fancied foreigners in the Cup?
And who is not charmed by the picture of a kid on a pony?
If we are a nation of horse lovers, how come we are slaughtering them in record numbers?
The Smart State is leading the way in what may be the largest horse cull on earth.
Thousands of brumbies have been shot in recent years by government shooters and there are 10,000, maybe 13,000 more brumbies facing execution in the next three years.
The Smart State has more than 100,000 brumbies roaming Carnarvon National Park, Clemant State Forest, Paluma Range, Barakula and Toolara state forests, Curtis Island off Gladstone, the Darling Downs, Greenbank, Fraser Island, Rainbow Beach and Tin Can Bay and central and far-western Queensland to the Northern Territory border.
Many face the bullet. And the more the brumbies are shot, the faster they breed.
State Government marksmen firing from helicopters are trained to shoot not at the head but the chest where the bullet will destroy vital organs like heart and lungs bringing the animal down more efficiently – and allegedly more humanely.
The shooting of at least 6000 brumbies in Queensland in recent years has both enraged and delighted animal lovers.
The horses are the descendants of the brumbies which carried Australians into battle in three wars.
And this week gruesome pictures of slaughtered Queensland brumbies were circulated around the world by animal rights campaigners in a bid to embarrass the Government into stopping the killing.
Save the Brumbies is challenging claims that wild horses destroyed recently in Queensland were put down humanely.
The controversy centres on the recent culling of wild horses at Murder Spring at Mt Moffatt, a remote and inaccessible section of Carnarvon National Park.
One picture allegedly shows a brumby dying in agony after being shot in the rump.
Another shows a young foal fretting over a dying mare.
"The foal will now be left to die from starvation," said Jan Carter, Save the Brumbies campaigner, who said she was sent the pictures by a Government whistleblower who was upset by the cull.
"The shooting of the horses is simply barbaric," she said.
Environmentalists in favour of removing brumbies from national parks say the animals are destroying fragile environments.
More than 1500 horses were shot in two culls on defence force land west of Townsville known as the High Range.
Documents obtained under Freedom of Information searches from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Primary Industries confirm plans to continue culling in national parks until 2010.
Hundreds of horses and feral pigs will be targeted in Clemant State Forest near Townsville.
Police at Rollingstone complained that brumbies wandering on to the Bruce Highway had caused two road accidents in 12 months.
Early plans to muster the horses and move them have apparently been scrapped.
A senior Government policy adviser said: "The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service concern with feral horses relates to both public safety and environmental impact.
"There is no place for feral horses on national parks as they are recognised as causing environmental harm including erosion, damage to vegetation, fouling waterholes and introducing weeds through seeds carried in their dung, manes and tails. Feral horses may also compete for food and water with native animals."
The Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland agrees.
In a statement earlier this year it called on the State Government to take immediate action to rid Clemant State Forest of brumbies.
Spokesman Des Boyland said the state had a statutory obligation to remove feral animals from protected areas.
A Government source, who requested anonymity for fear of harassment from animals rights activists, told me: "The horse is the most destructive animal of them all."
Save the Brumbies believes problems are being overstated.
Ms Carter wants the brumby to be declared a protected species in the same way the mustang won a heritage rating in the US nearly 30 years ago.
Gatton-based Brumby Watch Australia, a second support group, agrees.
Co-founder Kristine Sempf and her supporters work tirelessly to rescue brumbies.
"Society has become very heartless," she said. "Shooting horses is cruel and unnecessary."
She and her husband were alerting animal rights groups around the world to Queensland's state-sponsored cruelty.
She called on the Government to create sanctuaries for brumbies.
Ms Sempf said the group had saved many brumbies set for the knackery to be turned into pet food.
RSPCA in the firing line
The mass slaughter of horses in Queensland could have been avoided if the State Government had introduced biological controls to limit their breeding.
Save the Brumbies spokeswoman Jan Carter said infertility drugs administered by dart gun injection to the animal's rump had proved reasonably successful in Virginia in the US and Dartmoor in the UK.
The drug PZP blocks fertilisation in females without debilitating side effects for the animals, she said.
The RSPCA in Queensland agrees.
Spokesman Michael Beattie said the RSPCA first suggested the use of the infertility treatments 10 years ago.
"We are very frustrated," Mr Beattie said.
Animal rights groups have criticised the RSPCA for condoning recent horse kills.
Mr Beattie said the RSPCA reluctantly agreed with the culls and was on hand to ensure the animals were put down as humanely as possible.
The RSPCA had insisted that a second helicopter follow the shooters to ensure horses still alive after the first round of fire were quickly put down.
"It's a horror scenario, I know," Mr Beattie said.
"The last thing we want is to get involved in killing animals. We are in a lose-lose situation."
He admitted that RSPCA inspectors did not stay to observe the mass killing at Carnarvon.
"Two inspectors were there from Brisbane, but they were not there for the entire exercise," he said.
"It went on for some days. They had to get back. They had other jobs."
He said he could not say for certain whether photos posted on the Save the Brumbies website were from the Carnarvon cull. He would not rule out a hoax.
"But we will check it out," he said. "We will seek a report."
Hiding the grisly facts
The State Government seems more concerned with the media reaction to horse cullings than the plight of the animals themselves.
Reports obtained under Freedom of Information discuss the best ways to hide stories from the media.
The documents reveal goats, deer, pigs, cats and foxes are also marked for slaughter.
Foxes raiding turtle eggs on Curtis Island off Gladstone are to be targeted.
Shooting expeditions are kept secret for fear of media coverage and retaliation by animal rights activists. More than 800 feral animals were culled recently on the Granite Belt.
Earlier this year, then environment minister Lindy Nelson-Carr told premier Peter Beattie the killing of horses "has the potential to precipitate vocal opposition from small special-interest groups with strong inflexible views".
When the Townsville Bulletin asked about a cull planned for Clemant State Forest, a public servant suggested one option might be to "play doggo and do nothing".
Brumby removal plan sparks community debate
By Scott Bevan
They've inspired poetry and a film, and on their backs, legends have ridden into the national psyche. The brumbies that have roamed Australia's high country since the 1830s still quicken the heart.
The wild horses also attract visitors, according to Kosciuszko National Park tour guide Kelly Quirke.
"To go out into the national parks and to be able to see a wild horse is a pretty special experience," she said.
But Steve Horsley from the National Parks and Wildlife Service says the brumbies are now leaving their mark in a damaging way as well.
"Horse numbers have increased, there are impacts on water quality in certain catchments in the park and we're certainly seeing a lot more track erosion, and we're concerned about siltation," he said.
The service already has a plan for managing wild horse numbers in the Kosciuszko National Park and some have been trapped and removed in the past.
Removal
But a new plan has been drafted to cope with the expanding population, estimated at about 1,700.
Former state MP and local commercial horse riding operator, Peter Cochran, is concerned the plan is to remove all horses from the park.
"You can only read into it but the objective of the National Parks and Wildlife Service is to remove all horses from the national park, both those being wild horses or brumbies and domesticated horses, including commercial horse track operators," he said.
However Steve Horsley says that is not the intention.
"What this plan is about is managing the wild horse population, it's not about trying to eliminate the population," he said.
The plan involves sticking with the method of trapping and removing the horses. While a moratorium on the aerial shooting of horses was imposed seven years ago after a controversial cull in another national park, shooting from the ground is an alternative.
"We haven't discounted that for safety reasons that there might be the odd horse that has to be shot, but overall we don't anticipate that being a significant number," Mr Horsley said.
Kerry Rayer is a local property owner who has accepted up to 50 wild horses over the past five years and she says she feels sorry for the brumbies.
"It's not their fault. Man was the one that introduced them into the park; man should come up with the solution," she said.
But she says she also understands the service's need to reduce numbers in the park.
"Heritage wise, I prefer to see them out in the national parks, but the practicality of it, I can understand that they do need to be removed," she said.
"I think it's a good plan. My only question is, what happens to them after they're trapped and taken out of the park?"
Mr Horsley says the fate of the horses involves some ambiguity.
"What we're anticipating is that we take a reasonable number of horses out that we're not going to be able to find homes for them, so we'll finish up going through the sale yards," he said.
"I don't think we can discount the fact that if they go through the sale yards some will finish up going to abattoirs."
Brumby running
Mr Cochran does not believe the horses are causing as much damage as the draft plan says.
And he says if their numbers have to be thinned, the authorities should allow for the traditional method, called brumby running, where riders rope the horses.
"I believe that there's an opportunity there to have a win-win," he said.
"The National Parks and Wildlife Service can have their brumby numbers reduced, the young people can continue on with the traditions of their forefathers."
But the National Parks and Wildlife Service is totally opposed to brumby running and Mr Horsley says the method is not humane.
But Mr Cochran worries that the draft plan could lead to the heritage of the brumby being eventually lost to all Australians.
"I can't imagine that the heritage of the high country people would persist the way it has without that symbolic image of the horses of the high country, the freedom of a stallion running across the mountain at sunset," he said.
"If they take the brumbies out, we'll lose something that is very unique in Australia and very unique in the world.
"Those images stick in the minds of people that have seen it, and they'll be there forever."
Over 10,000 horses slaughtered
By Des Houghton
November 10, 2007 12:00am
MORE than 10,000 brumbies will be slaughtered in Queensland in a massive cull the State Government has tried to hide.
Documents obtained by The Courier-Mail show fears of a public outcry led to high-level talks on how to conceal one of the world's largest animal culls.
But the kill to help the environment - including shooting horses in the state's southeast - is already drawing international condemnation from animal rights groups and criticism of the RSPCA for condoning it.
Reports obtained under Freedom of Information showed the Government was aware of the controversy the cull would create.
Earlier this year, then environment minister Lindy Nelson-Carr told former premier Peter Beattie the killing of horses "has the potential to precipitate vocal opposition from small special-interest groups with strong inflexible views".
Thousands shot, left to rot
Thousands of horses already have been shot, including 4000 at the popular Carnarvon National Park in central Queensland.
In remote areas, the animals are left to rot where they fall.
But Government documents show that in other areas shooters were instructed to hide the bodies.
The cull has been condemned by animal rights groups, including Save the Brumbies, as "barbaric".
Spokeswoman Jan Carter claimed photographs of the Carnarvon cull had been sent anonymously to her by a State Government employee.
The technique used involved marksmen who are trained to shoot the horses in the chest for a quick kill from helicopters.
Foals left with dead parents
But those against the cull claim photographs in circulation show wounded animals in pain and young surviving foals left near dead members of their herds.
Mrs Carter urged the Government to set up brumby sanctuaries and consider infertility treatments used overseas to restrict wild horses breeding.
Animal welfare group the RSPCA has condoned the program, raising the ire of hardline animal groups.
Brumby Watch Australia co-founder Kristine Sempf said the animals could be tamed.
She said her son Nathan had a tamed horse saved from a cull at Greenbank, south of Brisbane.
But RSPCA spokesman Michael Beattie said his organisation first suggested the use of infertility drugs 10 years ago and supported sanctuaries.
Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara said shooting the horses was the most humane option.
"The program is not about eradication of feral horses but rather ensuring population is kept at a manageable level in consideration of the welfare of both the horses and the native wildlife in the park," he said.
"However, for the first phase of the program, we investigated all the options and shooting was considered to be the most humane solution.
brumby shooters are told to aim for the chest, but campaigners say they leave too many wounded horses to slowly die / Rob Maccoll
Here is a video i made for a Biology Assignment about the brumbies and the trouble they are in.
