Roll over Banjo, they’re culling your Brumbies

By John Mikkelsen

I’m sure Banjo Patterson would be rolling in his grave if he learns that the beautiful wild brumbies that featured in his immortal Man from Snowy River are currently being subjected to an extensive aerial cull.

“Cull” is a polite word for murder in my book, with galloping herds attacked by shooters in helicopters. But that is the preferred option to simply re-housing the wild horses, as suggested by various organisations as a more humane option.

To rub salt in the wound, we simultaneously have numerous bleeding hearts resisting calls for shark culls following the recent horrific attack on a young woman swimming between the flags at Sydney’s Coogee Beach. This was just the latest in a spate of attacks over the past couple of years, most of which have proved fatal.

They must have experts handling their repetitive PR (which to me smacks of BS) – “ Beautiful creatures, we are intruding on their territory and we should know the risks…”

The New South Wales Government just resumed aerial shooting of brumbies to curb a reported population surge. They claim a recent survey estimated the wild horse population had spiked to between 6,476 and 16,411. (That just leaves a margin for error of almost 10,000). Officials say they are legally required to reduce the total number of horses to 3,000 by mid-2027 to “protect fragile alpine ecosystems.”

But any damage they might cause would be infinitesimal compared to the ongoing problematic, totally irrational Snowy 2 project whose cost has blown out from the $2billion originally touted by former Liberal PM Malcolm Turnbull (aka The Miserable Ghost) to the current ever-escalating estimate of $42 billion.

Besides the dog-chasing-tail scenario of pumping water uphill in the daytime to create less power when it runs downhill at night, the associated power lines will involve clearing through the Kosciuszko National Park over vast distances, resulting in the removal of native vegetation across an estimated 118 hectares outside the park, alongside extensive felling easements through the park itself. Good one, Malcolm.

Several prominent animal welfare and equine advocacy organizations are actively fighting the aerial brumby cull, arguing that non-lethal management including mustering, trapping, and rehoming should be prioritized.

These include:

Australian Brumby Alliance (ABA); As a national umbrella body, the ABA coordinates with local rescue groups to advocate for humane management. They emphasize that wild horses are easy targets for non-lethal capture and maintain that aerial shooting cannot guarantee a swift, pain-free death.

Save the Brumbies: This charity operates dedicated sanctuaries and runs a highly structured adoption program. They have successfully gentled and rehomed more than 400 brumbies, using their track record to demonstrate that a reliable, non-lethal reduction program is entirely feasible if given sufficient government backing.

The Brumby Project: Operating year-round adoption streams, The Brumby Project takes unhandled horses out of threatened environments and matches them with experienced owners who possess the specialized facilities required to domesticate wild horses.

Animal Liberation & Animal Justice Party: Working on both legal and activist fronts, they lobby the government to halt culls and campaign for official funding to construct rehoming infrastructure closer to the Australian Alps.

These all sound reasonable to me, and this poignant song has just brought tears to my cynical old eyes, Tell The Wind How Brumbies Fall but at the risk of upsetting other environmental groups, let’s explore the contrasting treatment of sharks along our beautiful coastline.

To my knowledge the brumbies haven’t killed and eaten anybody, but Australia has recorded a total of 30 shark attacks across 2025 to June 2026, resulting in nine fatalities, as this table shows:

According to the ongoing database registry at Tracking Sharks, 2026 has seen a heavily publicised spike in aggressive activity, especially around major city harbors and beaches.

January 2026 saw an extraordinary pattern of four attacks within 48 hours, including a fatal attack on a 12-year-old boy inside Sydney Harbour. Meanwhile, trawler and commercial fishermen across Australia including my own Sunshine Coast territory are reporting an “out-of-control” boom in shark populations, providing firsthand observations that line up with former Prime Minister and new Liberal Party president Tony Abbott’s push to reopen shark fisheries. Abbott stated, “It’s so wrong that we don’t put people before sharks,” arguing that state governments cannot prioritize conservation ahead of public safety.

The fishermen say that shark depredation—where sharks steal hooked or netted fish before they can be reeled in—has reached unprecedented levels.

They are losing expensive gear daily to aggressive sharks trailing their vessels. Presenters from The Fishing Show on 7Mate report a dramatic increase in reeling up “half-sharks”—smaller sharks that are being aggressively eaten by much larger sharks, a behaviour rarely seen a decade ago. But sharks are protected across all Australian Commonwealth waters (extending from three nautical miles to 200 nautical miles offshore) and inside state-managed marine parks, sanctuaries, and specific refuge areas.

Go figure, as the kids say. And while we are at it, why not add equally deadly cone shells, blue-ringed octopus, box jellies and Irikundji to the protected list, along with the fully protected crocodiles which are expanding their traditional northern territorial waters with multiple sightings in South East Queensland’s Mary River and the Fraser Coast.

On dry land, why not add potentially deadly funnelweb and red back spiders to the fully protected snake population reportedly responsible for an average of around 3,000 bites and several human fatalities each year, as well as numerous attacks on dogs and other pets. These can leave worried owners with thousands of dollars in vet bills if the poor animals manage to survive.

And don’t mention dingoes – we can cull them at the drop of a hat if one attacks or approaches a human aggressively on K’Gari (formerly Fraser Island) but aren’t the tourists encroaching on their territory just like those “beautiful” man/woman eaters out in the surf.

When it comes to sharks as usual I have some skin in the game, having spearfished in my youth along most of the East Coast from northern Reef waters to Port Phillip Bay in the south, with many finned, toothy encounters along the way. Thankfully these didn’t include the now numerous white pointers which NSW Premier Chris Minns won’t contemplate culling, or I might not be here to tell the tail.

Some of these are recounted in my memoir ramblings linked at the foot of this contribution, but regarding the brumbies, I’ll leave the final words to the immortal Banjo after the fabled “Colt from Old Regret” ran off to join the wild brumbies and his brilliant poem describing the chase became part of the colourful fabric of our nation. It also inspired an iconic movie in 1982: The Man from Snowy River by A B Banjo Paterson – Famous poems, famous poets. – All Poetry

“…But the man from Snowy River let the pony have his head, And he swung his stockwhip round and gave a cheer, And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed, While the others stood and watched in very fear. He sent the flint-stones flying, but the pony kept his feet, He cleared the fallen timbers in his stride, And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat, It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride….

“…And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise Their torn and rugged battlements on high, Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze At midnight in the cold and frosty sky, And where around the Overflow the reed -beds sweep and sway To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide, The man from Snowy River is a household word today, And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.”

John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist, freelance writer and author of the Amazon Books Memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev. (https://www.amazon.com.au/Dont-Call-Nev-John-Mikkelsen/dp/B09S244GP1/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?