URGENT ACTION ALERT: Don’t let them KILL the brumbies!

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES

Remember the Australian film THE MAN FROM SNOWY RIVER?   STOP the KILLERS from chasing the brumbies with choppers and KILLING the wild horses from the Snowies

Share the Australian petition to Stop the Slaughter of the Brumbies:  http://chn.ge/1y1HgQq

©WHK

 

Brumby foal killed in Frazier Downs 2012 ©LS

 

Brumbies are Australian heritage wild horses. Witnesses found them shot and killed (Copyright protected)

Brumbies are Australian heritage wild horses. Witnesses found them shot and killed (Copyright protected ©WHK)

 

Stop the slaughter and eradication of the Snowy Mountains Brumby and reinstate access for horse riders to all areas of the Kosciuszko National Park

Petition by
Richard Roberts
Australia

“Sickening footage of this event can be located easily on the internet, showing horses with their teeth blown out, mares shot dead while foaling and other horses with bullet riddle bodies, it was nothing less than a massacre and an event of international embarrassment and disgrace at the time when Australia had just again immortalised the Man From Snowy River and the Brumbies to an international audience at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.”

Read the petition and sign it here . Then share it with everyone you know!

They didn’t learn their lesson. Now they want to SHOOT AND KILL the Brumbies again! Leaving them to DIE a HORRIBLE DEATH like they did before!  Some were shot dead while giving birth! Watch the video below and share widely!

 

PM Brumbies © Tony Marsh Marked

 

Note: the images provided are from previous “culls” as we will all stand with Australian Brumby advocates to stop the killing! 

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

Opponents of wild horse cull in the Kimberley say some have been left to die slowly

As seen on Australia’s Yahoo News and ABC (Australian Broadcast Company)

Opponents of a cull of thousands of wild horses in Western Australia say they have evidence the animals are not being killed humanely.

CAITLYN GRIBBIN –

Aerial slaughter kills thousands of Brumbies (wild horses) in Australia. Copyrighted photo.

Aerial slaughter kills thousands of Brumbies (wild horses) in Australia. Copyrighted photo.

 

Over the past week, more than 7,000 brumbies have been shot dead in the remote East Kimberley, using rifles fired from mustering helicopters.

Traditional owners, the RSPCA, and local graziers admit brumby numbers are out of control and have endorsed the cull because the horses are destroying native habitat near the WA/Northern Territory.

The Aboriginal Lands Trust undertook the cull on two stations with Aboriginal pastoral leases.

It is being overseen by veterinarian Jordan Hampton.

“You have two people in a small mustering helicopter and the shooter has a high-calibre semi-automatic weapon,” he said.

“They’re called SLRs, they’re similar to military rifles that were used in the Vietnam war.”

Dr Hampton is monitoring animal welfare during the operation.

“The helicopter pilot gets the shooter side on as close as he can to the animal, and then there’s our policy of repeat shooting,” he said.

“It’s known as mandatory overkill; each animal is shot more than once to ensure that it is indeed dead.”

RSPCA supports cull as little food or water for horses

The RSPCA is supporting the cull, saying it is inhumane to let the horses live because there is not enough food and water.

It says it demanded the brumbies be killed instantly through an accurately-fired shot, through the head or thorax.

But Libby Lovegrove, from activist group Wild Horses Kimberley, says she has evidence that has not happened.

“The photos, there’s one there of a horse that’s been shot in the shoulder and he’s been left to die, you can see the blood running down his leg,” she said.

Ms Lovegrove says the photos were taken by one of the stations’ employees on the October 30.

Shot but left to bleed to death like many brumbies from the aerial massacre

Shot but left to bleed to death like many brumbies from the aerial massacre. Copyright protected.

In one photo, a brumby is standing in a paddock and Ms Lovegrove says the horse is bleeding from a bullet wound on its left fore quarter.

“That bullet would’ve gone into its shoulder,” she said.

“Eventually it probably would either bleed to death slowly in the 40 degree heat or it would just carry that wound around with it, and it would be in tremendous pain.

“The other photographs are of a mare and a young colt, they all looked to be in terrific condition but they’ve both been shot, one of them in the wrong place.

“My major concern is when they shoot the mares, the foals that are left there have no way of surviving, they die slowly, it’s pretty terrible.”

Vet admits some horses still alive after being shot

In a statement, the Aboriginal Lands Trust and the Department of Aboriginal Affairs say they are confident the operation was conducted as professionally and humanely as possible.

Dr Hampton, who examined 452 of the 7,000 dead horses, admitted some were still alive after being shot.

“That’s part of the assessment and also the potential for the animal to show signs of having had a protracted death,” he said.

“We found animals alive associated with approximately one per cent of all the animals that were targeted.”

Wild Horses Kimberley says the brumbies should not be shot, but instead mustered and gelded.

But Dr Chris Pollitt, a veterinarian and feral horse researcher, says that is not viable and brumbies wreck the environment.

“Like looking at the surface of Mars, there was absolutely no natural pasture and it really did look red and barren,” he said.

And, he rejected the prospect of gelding.

“When you have extensive populations, difficult terrains, it’s not just as simple as you think,” he said.

RSPCA says it is pushing for a long-term strategy to control horse numbers and has requested that the photos in question be sent to them.

Ms Lovegrove wants the killing of the horses to get international attention.

“I’m in touch with the Mustang people in America because in the States now they’re passing laws to save their Mustangs,” she said.

 

 

Go to the Yahoo 7 article to Tweet, FB & Share: http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/19697501/opponents-of-wild-horse-cull-in-the-kimberley-say-some-have-been-left-to-die-slowly/

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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