ANU academics who wrote about three starving horses eating the innards of a dead horse last month should have called for help for the animals and not exploited them for a sensationalist story, say Snowy Mountains horse riders.
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Dr Don Driscoll and Dr Sam Banks' claims were made to underline their case for a resumption of aerial culling in the mountains. They reckon between 7000 and 11000 horses will die from starvation, poisoning or dehydration over a decade if aerial culling is not included in management plans.
The horse riders association's spokeswoman Leisa Caldwell said the academics were irresponsible. Ms Caldwell also criticised Kosciuszko National Park managers for not allowing her members to remove the horses.
"You don't need a university degree to know that horses are not carnivorous but were
probably nibbling at their fallen mates' caecum and intestines for the undigested herbaceous matter to
survive," Ms Caldwell said.
"The sickening part of this story is that our horsemen requested on two occasions to go and remove those horses before winter set in but were not permitted to do so by park managers. These horses should have been saved and re-homed," Ms Caldwell said in a statement.
The researchers' claims also provoked stinging criticism from Snowy Mountains Bush Users Group president Peter Cochran. Mr Cochran said his members had been aware of the horses and were in contact with NSW National Parks staff about them.
A spokeswoman for National Parks said staff attended horses at two locations in the southern part of the park: Cootapatamba Hut and Dead Horse Gap.
At Cootapatamba Hut, a lone horse was euthanased on humane grounds after discussions with the RSPCA and Mr Cochran.
"At Dead Horse Gap, about six kilometres south of Thredbo, there were five snowbound horses, three alive and two dead. NPWS staff monitored the three surviving horses, which were in very poor condition, and considered euthanasia on humane grounds, however mustered them to lighter snow cover and they are believed to have survived," the spokeswoman said.
Ms Caldwell said the two researchers' story and video, 'The grim story of the Snowy Mountains' cannibal horses' made staggering claims of brumbies turning to cannibalism.
"Many SMHRA members are descendants of the original Snowy Mountains pioneers and their families have
managed the brumbies for more than 150 years. They are appalled at the outrageous comments by the
ANU visitors who spent two days in the mountains recently," she said.
Ms Caldwell said a National Parks draft of the official count taken in May, 2014, had said numbers could be as
low as 3800 brumbies in the whole of Kosciusko National Park.
"It is becoming clear that some ANU academics and
their anti-horse lobby friends are getting quite desperate and are going to any lengths to see our brumbies
exterminated," Ms Caldwell said.
National Parks Association of the ACT conservationist Dianne Thomson says feral horse numbers are totally out of control, and serious measures need to be undertaken to significantly reduce their numbers because of the damage they were doing to sensitive water catchments.
