“In 2018, the Berejiklian government sanctioned National party-inspired legislation to retain thousands of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park despite their degradation of the park’s water catchments and endangered alpine species. No other state government in the history of New South Wales has enacted legislation that directly undermines Kosciuszko’s 75 years of protection.”
Make sure to read professor Graeme Worboy’s and professor Jamie Pittock’s powerful words on the feral horse issue in The Guardian article ‘Kosciuszko’s brumby backers are vandalising a national treasure‘.
The Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act was to retain feral horses in Kosciuszko national park and to protect them from management removal programs. It advised that the (then) proposed bill had given priority to a single invasive species over many native species and ecosystems, some of which were not found anywhere else.
It is time to listen to the science.
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“One of the biggest threats to our national parks is feral pests: feral cats, feral dogs, feral rabbits and, let us call them for what they are, not brumbies, feral horses,” he said. “When it comes to the Kosciuszko national park, my first act as environment minister was to go to that park to see the impact of feral horses on the park. I saw for myself firsthand one of the most beautiful natural environments anywhere in the world, and the devastating impact that the number of horses is having on that environment.”