Australia: Stop killing wild horses. Clinton Wolf and RSPCA spin piece (graphic images)

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 2012

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?

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

Indigenous vision for Kimberley irks Greens

FORMER ALP national president Warren Mundine and wealthy Perth dealmaker John Poynton are behind a plan to promote indigenous investment by building a $600 million port near the Kimberley town of Derby to service the massive offshore oil and gas industry.

But the plan could spark a fresh stoush with green groups over the industrialisation of the Kimberley, which boasts vast unexplored deposits of coal, bauxite, uranium and iron ore that could one day be shipped out through a new port.

A supply base at Point Torment, 30km north of Derby, would be aimed initially at servicing Woodside Petroleum’s planned $40 billion Browse liquefied natural gas project near Broome, which has attracted opposition from environmentalists who say the Kimberley should remain undeveloped.

West Australian Greens MP Robin Chapple said any development at Point Torment, which he described as a pristine piece of coastline, would be “another nail in the coffin for the Kimberley”.

Mr Chapple called on West Australian Premier Colin Barnett to reject the plan. “It flies in the face of what the Premier has said — that we wouldn’t have any further industrialisation of the Kimberley,” he said.

Mr Barnett has expressed support for a supply port to service the LNG industry at Point Torment, saying it should not be built at Broome because of the need to preserve the town’s tourism industry.

He told The Weekend Australian the government had held talks with firms with petroleum interests in the Browse Basin, off the Kimberley coast, to determine their interest in using Point Torment, but “in reality it will be a commercial decision which drives future development”.

Leading Perth-based investment bank Azure Capital, which is run by Mr Poynton, is behind the Point Torment plan. It is understood a Malaysian investment consortium has expressed an interest in helping to develop such a project.

The plan is being driven by an Azure director, indigenous leader Clinton Wolf, and forms part of the bank’s efforts to identify investment opportunities that would benefit Aborigines and involve them as shareholders.

A company called Point Torment Supply Base has been set up to examine the viability of building the facility. The directors are listed as Mr Mundine, Mr Poynton, Mr Wolf and fellow Azure Capital director Simon Price.

Mr Wolf said the plan was at a preliminary stage and would only go ahead if it was economically viable and was supported by traditional owners and other stakeholders.

But he said talks would be held soon to outline the proposal and get feedback from key players.

Mr Mundine, who chairs the Australian Indigenous Chamber of Commerce, said he believed a new supply base and port facility at Point Torment could help the development of the Kimberley’s huge mineral reserves.

He became a director because he wanted to ensure that any development benefited Aborigines. “This is about closing the gap, it’s about Aboriginal people having skin in the game,” he said. “This type of project needs to go ahead otherwise you will keep people in poverty.”

He said the Kimberley was bigger than most European countries and that Australia’s environmental laws were strong enough to ensure responsible development.

Shire of Derby president Elsia Archer said the town was desperate for a developer to build a port, which could also be used for the region’s live cattle exports.

A WA government report in 2005 identified Point Torment as a suitable site for heavy industry, suggesting it could be home to an alumina refinery, which would be underpinned by bauxite mining on the Mitchell Plateau in the northern Kimberley. It said the West Kimberley had deposits of diamonds, iron ore, copper, lead, zinc, silver, nickel, uranium, coal, tin, mineral sands and onshore petroleum.

Oil company Buru Energy recently announced a major discovery in the Canning Basin area of the Kimberley, prompting WA Resources Minister Norman Moore to say last month he expected an exploration surge. But the viability of a supply base at Point Torment will be linked to whether Woodside and other LNG companies, including Shell and Japan’s Inpex, support it.

There is speculation that Shell plans to use ports in Broome and Darwin to support its Prelude LNG project, while Inpex is said to have settled on Darwin.

– See more at: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/indigenous-vision-for-kimberley-irks-greens/story-fn9hm1pm-1226268282835#sthash.YhxLdHT9.dpuf

Could the Brumby killers have broken the law?

No consultation claim over horse kill

Brad Thompson, The West Australian October 31, 2013, 4:54 am
No consultation claim over horse kill
Horses at Balgo that died in the mud last year. Picture: Supplied

Experienced pastoralists and the RSPCA have backed a mass cull of thousands of feral horses on two Kimberley stations despite claims from the Aboriginal manager of one of the properties that he was not consulted.

Bililunna manager Mark Gordon wrote to Aboriginal Affairs Minister Peter Collier and Lands Minister Brendon Grylls last week pleading with them to prevent the cull.

The letter was signed by Mr Gordon and eight others who said they were traditional owners who had not been consulted and were opposed to aerial shooting of horses on their land.

The Aboriginal Lands Trust and the Kimberley Land Council yesterday rejected the claim, saying the cull had been discussed with traditional owners on several occasions and unanimously supported.

The ALT and the KLC said the cull was necessary to prevent an animal welfare disaster, for the economic viability of the stations and for the ALT to meet its legal obligations to control feral animals. The ALT had received breach notices from the Pastoral Lands Board and was in danger of forfeiting the valuable leases.

“At least we have a way forward to build economic sustainability for communities on those two properties,” ALT’s chairman Clinton Wolf said.

Haydn Sale, who runs nearby Yougawalla Station, said the ALT had no choice after investigating other options. “They were facing absolute disaster, thousands and thousands of horses stuck dying in the lake as it dried up,” he said.

The cull started at Lake Gregory on Monday and there were unconfirmed reports from Kimberley Wild Horses yesterday that about 3000 horses had been shot.

Mr Gordon agreed urgent action was needed as the lake dried up but said he wanted to muster the horses to create employment. He said some would be kept for breeding, others gelded and old or sick horses put down.

The RSPCA and Mr Sale said mustering and trucking wild horses exposed them to a high risk of stress and injury.

 

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Australian pro-kill article spins brumby massacre despite livestock damaging the land and plans for Fracking

When will Australia come clean with the real reason they want to kill off the brumbies? Read the biased spin piece (below) that doesn’t mention the other side of the debate. Why isn’t ABC including brumby advocates in this article?

 

Cross-posted from ABC

Feral horse cull commences in the central Kimberley

By Belinda Varischetti and Babs McHugh

Updated Thu 31 Oct 2013, 1:47pm AEDT

An aerial cull of thousands of feral horses has started on two Indigenous pastoral leases in the central Kimberley.

The Kimberley Rangeland Biosecurity Group says there are about 6,000 feral horses on Lake Gregory and Billiluna stations. However, the Pastoralists and Graziers Association believes the number is closer to 9,000.

The Aboriginal Lands Trust says the horses must be removed to protect the local environment, to comply with legal obligations and to mitigate animal welfare and public health issues.

The RSPCA is also supporting the aerial cull.

Clinton Wolf is the chair of the Aboriginal Lands Trust.

“What I am firm on is the number in relation to the aerial count and that was 6,000 horses,” he said.

“The logistics is basically that the RSPCA is heavily involved, we’ve got two veterinarians there, I believe that there is two helicopters involved and that’s the standard way of doing culls in Western Australia on pastoral leases and we’ve just tried to make sure that we’ve followed to the letter the exact requirements for best practice aerial culling which we believe and we’ve been told by a variety of experts is the most humane way of dealing with the feral horse population.”

Mr Wolf says the traditional owners want the feral horse numbers under control for business and personal safety considerations.

“Build a fence one day and the next day it’s not there because a huge herd of wild horses has run right through the middle of it. You can see the distress in their eyes and they’ve had a connection with these horses for 120 years.

“When you see them say we’ve had enough and sure we want a few horses out here because we want to maintain that connection, but you can’t have six to seven thousand horses running around and what is concerning them also is when there was no water around, the horses were coming into the community.

“And you’ve got two or three year old kids walking around and we’re not saying wild horses are aggressive or anything like that, but when you’ve got a wild animal that suddenly takes flight over a vehicle going past and takes off and runs over the top of a child, is anyone going to turn around and say ‘well, we should put up with that’, because quite clearly we shouldn’t.

“We’ve got a feeling that if we get on top of the bulk of them, we’ve already had discussions with Kimberley land Council rangers who are saying that as part of their duty statement that they’re prepared to participate moving forward so that we absolutely keep a handle on this.”

The Australian Wildlife Conservancy has backed the cull of the brumbies at Lake Gregory “as long as it’s humanely conducted”.

The AWC owns more than 800,000 acres in the Kimberley, most of it former pastoral stations.

The land is being rehabilitated and cleared of feral animals to help build up numbers of endangered species.

Chief executive Atticus Fleming says the brumbies don’t belong there.

“Feral horses do have a significant impact on the environment, they are driving the decline in our wildlife, along with other feral herbivores.

“So action does need to be taken. It needs to be done humanely, but we need to remove them from the Australian environment.”

Mr Fleming says the option of rounding up and breaking in the brumbies wouldn’t be practical in the vast Kimberley.