Why is Australia culling wild horses?

A government-sanctioned programme to cull the brumby mobs of wild horses in Australia’s High Country has become a hot political issue in New South Wales and Victoria, the two states whose border is straddled by the Snowy Mountains. Immortalised in Australian literature through the famous 1890 bush ballad ‘The Man from Snowy River’, by the poet and journalist Andrew ‘Banjo’ Paterson, to many, these wild horses represent a living part of the Australian national legend.

Set in the Snowy Mountains, the poem tells the story of a posse of riders who chase down a mob of wild horses – brumbies – to recapture an escaped racehorse colt who has joined them. It’s a story that triggers pride in a great many Australians. It plays to our national self-image of ourselves as courageous, never-say-die individualists, laughing at danger and willing to take the greatest risks in pursuit of goals greater than oneself. Unsurprisingly, then, the two state governments’ decisions to cull these wild horses is controversial.