Protect the Alps – help end the reign of hard hooves

• Decades of impeccable alpine science show that the hard hooves of horses, along with grazers like deer and pigs, are causing long-lasting damage. Every day ancient habitats of endangered wildlife are trampled in the Alpine National Park.
• Horses are a domestic farm animal, and have no place in the high country. Unlike feral horses, many of the creatures that live in the Alps live here and nowhere else on Earth.
• Given the impact of the Black Summer bushfires on native wildlife habitats, the increasing size and distribution of feral horse populations requires urgent attention to preserve Victoria’s iconic alpine landscapes and wildlife for future generations.
• Feral horse numbers in Victoria are increasing, as is the significant disturbance and damage to natural ecosystems. There are currently somewhere between 2,000-5,000 horses in the eastern alpine region, 50-100 in the Southern Bogong High plains and 600-800 in the Barmah National Park.
• Feral horses are impacting at least 25 threatened alpine plants and 14 threatened alpine animals, including the fuzzy Tooarrana (Broad-toothed Rat) and rare alpine orchids.
• Feral horses disrupt the functioning of living ecosystems and damage habitats and water catchments in the Alps. They trample, create tracks, compact soil, wallow, erode streambanks, overgraze and destroy sphagnum bogs and wetlands.
• Victoria has a solid strategy for control of feral horses and has made significant progress in putting in place plans and a control program. But action been delayed, and additional resourcing is needed to ramp up the program and control is effective in the mid to long-term.
• The Inquiry’s terms of reference are restricted to the Australia Alps, however there are feral horse infestations in other parts of Victoria. These impact sites of national environmental significance, including RAMSAR sites and Barmah National Park. These issues should be considered as part of the inquiry.
• The NSW Kosciuszko National Park Wild Horse Heritage Management Plan will undermine Victoria’s efforts to reduce feral horse numbers. This is due to the location of a wild horse retention zone adjacent to the Victorian border.
• While all effective options should be used depending on the circumstance, fertility control, trapping and rehoming are not viable options for feral horse population reduction. This is due to the size and geographic spread of the current population in the alps and the lack of sufficient rehoming options.
• Ground and aerial shooting are humane and effective control options. The RSPCA has stated that, depending on circumstances, both ground and aerial shooting can deliver better animal welfare outcomes than trapping.
• Early and substantial resources and investment are needed to have the best long-term benefits for tax-payers, land managers, ecosystems, threatened wildlife, Indigenous heritage, park visitors and the horses themselves.
• A plan to rapidly reduce feral horses in the Alps needs a consistent, well-funded program across Victoria, NSW and the ACT, using best practice methods. Commonwealth funding to incentivise and/or support state action is critically important to protect these nationally significant areas.
• Feral horses cause damage to cultural heritage sites in the Victorian Alps and Alpine National Park. Feral horses pose an ongoing risk to the landforms, both tangible (visible) and intangible (lore) cultural sites and more broadly to the health of Country.
• If there are barriers to effective federal intervention, these should be addressed as a priority through reform to national environmental laws (EPBC Act) such as:
  – Create a new trigger for the assessment of actions that exacerbate a key threatening process.
  – Create a new trigger for actions that negatively impact on national parks and reserves which contribute to meeting Australia’s international obligations for protected areas under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
  – Develop national environmental standards that apply to the management of national parks, world heritage areas, national heritage places or Ramsar wetlands.

Check out VNPA’s Inquiry submission