19/07/2026
I struggle to understand why so many people who argue that Brumbies are such an immense environmental threat in Kosciuszko National Park are quiet about the much larger impacts of industrial development.
The approved Snowy 2.0 project involves major excavation, tunnelling, quarrying, road upgrades, transmission infrastructure and construction compounds within KNP. The project's environmental assessment acknowledges a construction footprint of around 1,680 hectares, including the clearing of approximately 1,053 hectares of native vegetation and impacts to roughly 992 hectares of threatened species habitat. It also identifies impacts to numerous threatened plants, animals and ecological communities.
By contrast, Brumbies are widely recognised as affecting sensitive alpine ecosystems through grazing, trampling and creek crossings, with concerns focused particularly on wetlands, bogs and some threatened species. There is no single accepted figure for exactly how many species are directly affected, nor is there evidence that Brumbies alone are responsible for the decline of those species. The extent of those impacts, and the most appropriate way to manage them, is hotly debated, but the impacts are generally localised rather than comparable in physical scale to a project like Snowy 2.0.
Many alpine threatened species are affected by multiple interacting pressures, including habitat fragmentation, altered fire regimes, invasive predators, invasive plants, climate change, disease (such as chytrid fungus in frogs which was introduced via human activities), and human infrastructure, alongside horse, deer, pig and other animal impacts.
It's astonishing how many people become passionate about the environment only when the conversation turns to Brumbies, while remaining silent on issues that have far larger and more measurable environmental footprints.
And yet, this is the hill they're willing to die on.
None of this is about choosing Brumbies over native wildlife. Humane management plans can change horse impact just as much. So why are so many average people out for blood all of a sudden?
We should be asking why we're so willing to accept industrial-scale disturbance while insisting that the only acceptable solution for wild horses is an inhumane death.
I personally believe it is because the topic has become so divisive that people are feeling the need to fling to one extreme or the other, and pro-cull advocates seem to be ignoring the bigger picture of what it is they claim they're fighting for.
Protecting ecosystems and protecting animal welfare should never be treated as mutually exclusive. We should be striving for both.
