Roll over Banjo, they're culling your brumbies

 I’m sure Banjo Patterson would be rolling in his grave if he learns that the beautiful wild brumbies that featured in his immortal Man from Snowy River are currently being subjected to an extensive aerial cull.

“Cull” is a polite word for murder in my book, with galloping herds attacked by shooters in helicopters. But that is the preferred option to simply re-housing the wild horses, as suggested by various organisations as a more humane option.

To rub salt in the wound, we simultaneously have numerous bleeding hearts resisting calls for shark culls following the recent horrific attack on a young woman swimming between the flags at Sydney’s Coogee Beach. This was just the latest in a spate of attacks over the past couple of years, most of which have proved fatal.

They must have experts handling their repetitive PR (which to me smacks of BS) - “ Beautiful creatures, we are intruding on their territory and we should know the risks…”

The New South Wales Government just resumed aerial shooting of brumbies to curb a reported population surge. They claim a recent survey estimated the wild horse population had spiked to between 6,476 and 16,411. (That just leaves a margin for error of almost 10,000). Officials say they are legally required to reduce the total number of horses to 3,000 by mid-2027 to “protect fragile alpine ecosystems.”

But any damage they might cause would be infinitesimal compared to the ongoing problematic, totally irrational Snowy 2 project whose cost has blown out from the $2billion originally touted by former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull (aka The Miserable Ghost) to the current ever-escalating estimate of $42 billion.

Besides the dog-chasing-tail scenario of pumping water uphill in the daytime to create less power when it runs downhill at night, the associated power lines will involve  clearing through the Kosciuszko National Park over vast distances, resulting in the removal of native vegetation across an estimated 118 hectares outside the park, alongside extensive felling easements through the park itself. Good one, Malcolm.

Several prominent animal welfare and equine advocacy organizations are actively fighting the aerial brumby cull, arguing that non-lethal management including mustering, trapping, and rehoming should be prioritized.

These include:

• Australian Brumby Alliance (ABA); As a national umbrella body, the ABA coordinates with local rescue groups to advocate for humane management. They emphasize that wild horses are easy targets for non-lethal capture and maintain that aerial shooting cannot guarantee a swift, pain-free death.
• Save the Brumbies: This charity operates dedicated sanctuaries and runs a highly structured adoption program. They have successfully gentled and rehomed more than 400 brumbies, using their track record to demonstrate that a reliable, non-lethal reduction program is entirely feasible if given sufficient government backing.
• The Brumby Project: Operating year-round adoption streams, The Brumby Project takes unhandled horses out of threatened environments and matches them with experienced owners who possess the specialized facilities required to domesticate wild horses.
• Animal Liberation & Animal Justice Party: Working on both legal and activist fronts, they lobby the government to halt culls and campaign for official funding to construct rehoming infrastructure closer to the Australian Alps.

These all sound reasonable to me, and this poignant song has just brought tears to my cynical old eyes, Tell The Wind How Brumbies Fall but at the risk of upsetting other environmental groups, let’s explore the contrasting treatment of sharks along our beautiful coastline.

To my knowledge the brumbies haven’t killed and eaten anybody, but Australia has recorded a total of 30 shark attacks across 2025 to June 2026, resulting in nine fatalities, as this table shows: