Today Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has flagged that the federal government may intervene to ensure a zero-tolerance approach to feral horses Kosciuszko National Park if the environmental impacts remain too high.
The warning to the NSW Government is contained in the Albanese Government’s response to the Senate inquiry into the impacts and management of feral horses in the Australian Alps, which has just been released.
Minister Plibersek says that if the current plan to reduce feral horse numbers to 3,000 by 2027 turns out to be ‘insufficient to avoid further irreversible damage’ then the Australian Government would seek a further reduction and would ‘support a zero-tolerance approach, such as that currently employed by the ACT’.
The most recent government survey of feral horse numbers found there are currently about 17,432 feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park.
Minister Plibersek has also committed to ask the Threatened Species Scientific Committee to prioritise the listing of feral horses as a Key Threatening Process under federal environmental law.
‘This is an important invention from Minister Plibersek. We have always known that the 3,000 target was just an arbitrary number that reflected a political deal between the Liberal and National parties in NSW,’ said Jack Gough, Invasive Species Council Advocacy Director.
‘It has nothing to do with science or protecting native species like the corroboree frog. We will still see enormous damage to our alpine waterways and wildlife while thousands of hard-hooved feral horses are left to trash, trample and pollute the area.
‘Of course, just getting down to 3,000 will take dedicated and consistent effort. We are very pleased that the Minns Government is so focussed and committed to achieving this current target by 2027, as required by law in NSW.
‘Minister Plibersek’s commitment to ask the Threatened Species Scientific Committee to prioritise the listing of feral horses as a Key Threatening Process under federal environmental law is also very welcome.
‘In addition to the Australian Alps, we know that feral horses are also trashing and trampling world heritage places like the Blue Mountains and Kakadu. Recognising the environmental threat they pose under federal law is an important step towards greater focus and funding.
It is disappointing that the Albanese Government has still not committed increased funding to the issue of feral horse management in this national heritage listed landscape.
‘Minister Plibersek has only invested $200,000 since coming to office, a stark contrast with the former Morrison Government which committed $1.1 million, or more than 5 times as much.’
‘No one likes to see animals killed, but the sad reality is that we have a choice to make between urgently reducing the numbers of feral horses or accepting the destruction of sensitive alpine ecosystems and habitats, and the decline and extinction of native animals.
‘We may not like it, but culling by highly trained professionals is the only viable way of reducing numbers and saving the national park and our native animals that live there,’ said Mr Gough.
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Background notes
- A November 2023 NSW government survey of feral horse numbers found that there are about 17,432 feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park (with a 95% confidence interval of between 12,934 and 22,536). This is an increase from about 6,000 feral horses in 2014.
- In NSW, feral horses are protected at the expense of native wildlife under the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act 2018, which requires a ‘heritage herd’ of feral horses to be maintained in Kosciuszko National Park.
- The current management plan for feral horses, which was introduced by the former Liberal Government, imposes a legal obligation on NSW National Parks to carry out control operations to reduce the feral horse population to 3,000 across 32% of Kosciuszko National Park by 2027
- The Australian Senate inquiry report into the Impacts and management of feral horses in the Australian Alps was released in October 2023 and recommended that:
- Aerial shooting should be adopted for control of feral horses in NSW (adopted by the NSW Government in October 2023)
- Habitat degradation, competition and disease transmission by feral horses should be listed as a Key Threatening Process under national environmental law (Agreed to in principle in federal government response)
- The federal government should provide additional funding to assist NSW and Victoria to control feral horses (Not yet agreed to by the Albanese Government)
- The Senate committee also found that it ‘is not currently possible for both the EPBC Act and the NSW Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act 2018 to be complied with’ and that ‘the committee considers that there may be an issue relating to the constitutional validity of the NSW Wild Horse Heritage Act to the extent it is inconsistent with the EPBC Act.’
- National Parks staff undertake feral horse control work professionally, humanely, and safely. This has been confirmed by two independent animal welfare reviews (here and here) of NSW feral horse control operations which found that:
- Animal welfare outcomes are prioritised and are better than predicted, as confirmed by independent veterinary observations.
- There was no evidence of non-kill shots having been taken.
- Standard Operating Procedures are rigorously followed, and all personnel have welfare as a priority.
- Australia’s alpine plants and animals did not evolve with heavy, hard-hoofed feral horses. They are not native and cause enormous damage to sensitive habitat, degrading and polluting alpine streams and driving native species towards extinction.
- The federal government’s Threatened Species Scientific Committee have described feral horses as an ‘imminent threat’ to the Albanese government’s commitment to prevent new extinctions of plants and animals and stated that feral horses ‘may be the crucial factor that causes final extinction’ for 12 alpine species.
- The 2023 state election demonstrated that having a strong position on feral horse management in Kosciuszko was electorally popular. There were strong swings to candidates and parties that took firm positions on feral horse control, most notably in the seats of Wagga Wagga and Monaro.
- 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 the Australian Alps.
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