Beautiful, beloved and highly destructive – Dr Joe McGirr wants the Kosciuszko Wild Horse Heritage Act 2018 to be scrapped. Photo: Invasive Species Council.
There are many creative methods to despatch cane toads.
You can use them as golf balls, chuck them in the freezer – or onto the bonfire – or simply run them down with your car.
Some people get a chuckle out of these stories, although the cane toads probably don’t see the funny side of it.
In New Zealand, our cute native possums are seen as a mangy, marauding source of evil and are subjected to similarly creative – although not necessarily kind – strategies of eradication.
The Kiwis are also on a quest to get rid of the hedgehogs that plague their islands, although I must admit when I came across one attempting to cross the road I couldn’t stop myself from quickly and quietly helping it to safety.
The Kiwis are right to have it in for hedgehogs. New Zealand’s unique birds have evolved in an environment almost completely devoid of mammals (they get seals and bats).
As a result, many birds nest and lay their eggs on the ground. Hedgehogs aren’t exactly rapacious predators, but they won’t say no to a free lunch deposited at eye-level either.
So, the hedgehogs have to go.
Up there with cane toads for Australians are foxes and, to a lesser extent, deer. This distresses my Scottish husband greatly.
Every time he sees a dead fox on the side of the road he’s devastated, and he was overjoyed to learn about a Sydney rescue organisation dedicated entirely to the capture and care of feral foxes.
My pragmatic former farmer mother was more bewildered by what she saw as an epic waste of money preserving a pest.
But when it comes to wild horses, even she has a soft spot.
Brumbies are simultaneously one of our most pernicious pests and beloved wild animals.
They do extensive damage to the ecosystems they live in. Hooved animals never evolved in Australia, and our delicate plants and waterways aren’t equipped to deal with them.
They don’t do that damage on purpose. They’re just living where they’ve found themselves – but you could say the same for cane toads and foxes.
Unless you have a heart of stone you can’t fail to hurt at the sight of brumbies being shot, or dying slow deaths after botched culls.
There are certainly kinder ways to manage the population and any and all support should be given to those who give our wild horses new homes and new lives.
By comparison, it’s harder to empathise with the slow, invisible vanishment of our unique plants – and the animals that depend on them – in the brumbies’ wake.
But the fact is we have the highest rate of mammalian extinction in the world.
It’s not just mammals. Murdoch University estimates we’ve lost 9000 invertebrate species since 1788.
The number one cause? Invasive species. And regardless of how much of a bummer it is, that includes brumbies.
Wagga’s Independent MP Joe McGirr spoke in the NSW Legislative Assembly recently about his bill to end protections for Snowy Mountains brumbies.
The bill is likely to meet with strong opposition and stronger emotions in many parts of the community.
The thing is, it’s often easier to be outraged than to take responsibility when something painful must be done.
Dr McGirr pointed out that we would never consider a bill to protect foxes or wild pigs in a National Park.
And despite the legends, brumbies aren’t the descendants of the noble horses who bore our Anzacs on far-flung battlefields. Only one war horse returned to Australia from overseas – his name was Sandy, and he lived out his life at Duntroon.
Our forefathers made the tough decision to put down their faithful companions, or leave them behind on foreign shores, because of the expense of bringing them home – and to avoid the risk of bringing back disease to our pristine environment.
We would honour them better by having the courage to make the tough decisions needed to preserve that same environment for future generations.
