They shoot horses don’t they?

The Kosciuszko National Park is a wild area of great natural beauty in Australia’s Snowy Mountains. 

You just need to watch where you walk in case you stumble upon the rotting carcasses of wild horses that have been shot from helicopters. 

The environment minister of the state of New South Wales has been given the go ahead by the courts to continue with the culling of the wild horses, known as brumbies. 

The pro-brumby Snowy Mountains Bush Users Group filed a legal action against the NSW environment minister, Penny Sharpe, in the state’s supreme court in June in a bid to stop the aerial culling, which was approved in October 2023.

After a three-day hearing in July, Justice David Davies handed down his judgment this week and dismissed the case.

In its lawsuit, the organisation claimed the decision to use aerial shooting as a means to control brumbies was “infected by error of law”.

Their lawyers told the court aerial shooting without preference for other control methods was “unnecessarily or unjustifiably” inflicting pain upon the horses and was an act of animal cruelty.

Parts of the park have remained closed during autumn and winter as shooting operations took place to reduce horse numbers, which surged when rehoming was favoured under the previous governments.

Previous counts showed there were more than 20,000 wild horses in the park, government estimates show, which officials say pose a risk to the delicate alpine ecosystem.