Brumbies shot down and killed a few years ago at Frazier Downs. Why does the RSPCA support these cruel massacres?
Tell the RSPCA to STOP endorsing the Brumby killings. “Aerial Cull” = Aerial Killing. They are shooting them down from helicopters. Recently the Lake Gregory Massacre killed thousands.
Contact the RSPCA here: http://www.rspca.org.au/contact-us
Brumby foal killed in Frazier Downs, Austalia 2012. Copyright protected. Courtesy Wild Horses Kimberley.
Read what the wild horse killers say and know that Clinton Wolf is a huge player in the extractive industry
“Clinton Wolf is the public face of the Martu people’s corporate campaign. He fronted mining executives in Fremantle this week, with a message that the traditional landowners are open for business.”
The real Clinton Wolf behind the Brumby massacre. Is he working to Frack Western Australia?
Shameful pro-kill spin piece is one-sided
Why didn’t they interview the wild horse advocates?
Cross-posted from The Bush Telegraph:
One of the country’s biggest horse culls has just been completed in the north of Western Australia, where more than 7000 brumbies have been shot from helicopters.
Feral horses are also aerially culled in the Northern Territory
But in Victoria and New South Wales this method is not an option, despite support from environmental groups and the RSPCA.
Author of the book Desert Lake, Kim Mahood, says feral horses are damaging fragile, arid landscapes.
“Lake Gregory is one of the most significant arid-zone wetlands in the southern hemisphere.”
Ms Mahood says, ironically, the cull is also needed to avert an animal welfare issue for the horses.
“The lake is lower than it’s been in ten years. It’s becoming very salty which means the horses are either poisoned by the salts or they move off to the handful of much smaller, fresh-water pools along Sturt Creek, at which point they start getting bogged and perishing in the waterways.”
Clinton Wolf is chair of the Aboriginal Lands Trust that carried out the cull, and says this is a very complex and emotional issue.
“They’ve had a connection with these horses for 120 years … but you can’t have six to seven thousand horses running around,” Mr Wolf said.
“When there was no water, the horses were coming into the community where you have two and three year old kids walking around.”
Kim Mahood says the area is an Indigenous Protected Area and a pastoral lease, which complicates the situation.
And she says the cull was an environmental requirement to allow the traditional owners to hold on to their traditional protected areas.
“The 99-year leases are due to come up for renewal in 2015…and the Pastoral Lands Board has threatened to take away the leases if something isn’t done about the feral horses.
“In 2002 the feral horses were identified as one of the biggest environmental issues for the region.
“With that number of horses, it couldn’t possibly be functioning effectively as a cattle station.”
Clinton Wolf agrees.
“We want to have these stations up to scratch so when the Pastoral Lands Board comes around they’ll say ‘no, you’re not in breach anymore, well done’,” he said.
Feral horses are also in large numbers in the Northern Territory where they are regularly aerially culled.
Executive Director of Flora and Fauna at the Department of Land Resource Management in Northern Territory, Alaric Fisher says wild horses are treated the same as any other feral animals.
“The landscape is suffering from a lot of ferals – horses amongst them, as well as camels, donkeys, buffalo and cattle in some places.
“On some properties horses are out of control through lack of any systematic management.
“We’ve had a lot of experience of aerial culls particularly through the management of feral camels…and have taken those techniques and applied them to horses as well.
“It’s an absolute requirement that each animal is shot (at least) twice and then they fly back over the animals to ensure they’re all dead.
“The location of every shot animal is recorded on GPS and they’re inspected subsequently by a vet and the welfare outcomes are audited.
“No animals were wounded and left behind and the average time to death was eight seconds,” Mr Fisher said.
The veterinary report from the recent NT aerial cull stated:
While not aesthetically pleasing, the technique of helicopter shooting for feral horses allows a far shorter duration of suffering when compared to any other method proposed to manage the population.
The Victorian Government is in the process of developing a management plan for the brumbies in the Victorian high country.
A spokesman for the state Minister for Environment and Climate Change sent a statement on feral horses to Bush Telegraph.
The Victorian Government is focussing efforts on other measures available including the live removal and re-homing of horses and the euthanasia of captured horses in a controlled environment.
Parks Victoria is developing the Victorian Alps Wild Horse Management Plan … The draft plan will soon be open for public comment.
Parks Victoria will provide final recommendations to the state government in 2014.
The RSPCA consistently supports aerially culling of wild horses and, in a submission to the Victorian Management Plan, accuses the Victorian Government of placing more importance on public perceptions than on animal welfare.
Parks Victoria prematurely and publically ruling out shooting will make it all the more difficult to now convince the public of the relative humanness of it. This situation could damage the reputation of Parks Victoria …and have adverse welfare impacts on the horses themselves.
Clinton Wolf, chair of the Aboriginal Lands Trust in Western Australia
Kim Mahood, author of Desert Lake, published by CSIRO.
Alaric Fisher, Executive Director of Flora and Fauna at the Department of Land Resource Management, Northern Territory
See more evidence of Frazier Downs cruelty here: http://pindanpost.com/2012/11/27/control-of-unwanted-horses-shot-from-helicopters/#jp-carousel-24919
