Donate
Donate
Donate

Australia’s leading scientists sound alarm on draft Kosciuszko horse plan

Today’s open letter from the Australian Academy of Science and seven other scientific societies raises the alarm for a park in crisis and calls for the NSW Government to strengthen its draft Kosciuszko Wild Horse Management Plan.

The open letter calls for the removal of a target that would retain 3000 feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, noting the ongoing damage this number of horses would have on alpine wetlands. It also raises serious concerns for the proposal to retain horses in a third of the park and calls for a full suite of horse control methods.

The open letter has been endorsed by eight scientific societies and more than 60 individual scientists.

“This letter underscores the need for a significant strengthening of the draft plan for removing feral horses from Kosciuszko National Park,” Invasive Species Council conservation director James Trezise said today.

“We echo calls from the scientific community to urgently reduce the number of horses to be kept in the park and for a major rethink of the zones for horse retention.

“We are also supporting the call for all control options to be available to park managers, including aerial shooting.

“Keeping thousands of horses in Kosciuszko runs contrary to international standards for park management and will threaten the survival of sensitive alpine ecosystems and native Australian wildlife, such as the critically endangered stocky galaxias.

“The stocky galaxias is a unique Australian fish that occurs nowhere else on Earth except for a small patch of Kosciuszko. The entire occurrence of this species exists within one of the proposed horse retention zones which, if implemented, would permanently lock-in a key threat to this critically endangered species.

“Just one week ago the federal government placed the stocky galaxias on its list of 100 priority threatened species for recovery, yet we have a plan before us from NSW that will effectively guarantee the destruction of its habitat. It is nonsensical, particularly for a government such as NSW that is committed to zero extinctions within its national parks.

“The statement from Australia’s leading scientific bodies is a clarion call to the NSW Government that it is time to protect the incredible wildlife, ecosystems and Indigenous cultural heritage of Kosciuszko National Park, and to strengthen its proposed feral horse plan,” Mr Trezise said.

The draft plan is open for public consultation until 2 November 2021.

Related Content

Kosciuszko National Park – feral horses removed 2008-19
Revealed: Kosciuszko feral horse program in meltdown
Counting horses in Kosciuszko: a critique of the ‘independent’ survey
Feral horses

Media ContactS

  • Andrew Cox, CEO
  • James Trezise, Conservation Director
Media enquiries

Media signup

Name(Required)
Sign up to receive our media releases in your inbox.
To receive / keep receiving occasional email updates such as Feral Herald, our online blog.
This field is hidden when viewing the form

Recent Media Releases

Hear from us when it matters

Your support to protect critically endangered and vulnerable species from extinction is vital. Together, we can ensure governments prioritise action on invasive species and protect our wildlife and iconic places.

The Invasive Species Council was formed in 2002 to seek stronger laws, policies and programs to protect nature from harmful pests, weeds and diseases.

The Invasive Species Council acknowledges the Traditional Custodians throughout Australia and their connections to land and sea. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.

Our Work

About Us

Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]


Dear Project Team,

[YOUR PERSONALISED MESSAGE WILL APPEAR HERE.] 

I support the amendment to the Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan to allow our incredible National Parks staff to use aerial shooting as one method to rapidly reduce feral horse numbers. I want to see feral horse numbers urgently reduced in order to save the national park and our native wildlife that live there.

The current approach is not solving the problem. Feral horse numbers have rapidly increased in Kosciuszko National Park to around 18,000, a 30% jump in just the past 2 years. With the population so high, thousands of feral horses need to be removed annually to reduce numbers and stop our National Park becoming a horse paddock. Aerial shooting, undertaken humanely and safely by professionals using standard protocols, is the only way this can happen.

The government’s own management plan for feral horses states that ‘if undertaken in accordance with best practice, aerial shooting can have the lowest negative animal welfare impacts of all lethal control methods’.

This humane and effective practice is already used across Australia to manage hundreds of thousands of feral animals like horses, deer, pigs, and goats.

Trapping and rehoming of feral horses has been used in Kosciuszko National Park for well over a decade but has consistently failed to reduce the population, has delayed meaningful action and is expensive. There are too many feral horses in the Alps and not enough demand for rehoming for it to be relied upon for the reduction of the population.

Fertility control as a management tool is only effective for a small, geographically isolated, and accessible population of feral horses where the management outcome sought is to maintain the population at its current size. It is not a viable option to reduce the large and growing feral horse population in the vast and rugged terrain of Kosciuszko National Park.

Feral horses are trashing and trampling our sensitive alpine ecosystems and streams, causing the decline and extinction of native animals. The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee has stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.

I recognise the sad reality that urgent and humane measures are necessary to urgently remove the horses or they will destroy the Snowies and the native wildlife that call the mountains home. I support a healthy national park where native species like the Corroboree Frog and Mountain Pygmy Possum can thrive.

Kind regards,
[Your name]
[Your email address]
[Your postcode]