Australian cowboys protest against planned cull of wild horses
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Sydney - Cowboys on horseback and hundreds of horse lovers on foot protested in the centre of Sydney Tuesday against state government plans to cull thousands of wild horses from the Snowy Mountains.
The New South Wales government plans to cull 90 per cent of the 6,000 wild horses, known in Australia as brumbies, estimated to roam free in the mountains.
Environment Minister Mark Speakman released a draft plan earlier this year aimed at reducing the impact of brumbies on sensitive vegetation and waterways in national park wilderness across the Snowy Mountains.
Wild horses will be shot by rangers if they can't be rounded up, cutting numbers from 6,000 to 600 within 20 years.
But protestors outside parliament house, including at least half a dozen riders who brought their horses into the heart of the city, said brumbies were a vital part of Australian folklore and called on the government to abandon the cull.
Peter Cochrane, president of the Snowy Mountains Bush Users Group, told the broadcaster ABC the government would shoot thousands of horses but did not say what they would do with the thousands of carcasses.
The horses were first released by settlers into the mountains in the early 19th century and over 150 years it became a romantic tradition to round up the rugged and hardy brumbies to be broken in as working horses or pets.
National Parks director Robert Quirk said in a report to the government that there were just too many horses to capture and shooting was a humane way to remove them.
- DPA
