STEVE HART:\u00a0Culling teams have today resumed aerial shooting operations to rein in brumby numbers in Kosciuszko National Park. The latest brumby count estimates between 6,000 and 16,000 feral horses are roaming in the park. Environmental groups saying numbers have exploded following a two year pause on culling \u2026\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Win News Riverina, 9 June 2026<\/p>\n
Hello, I\u2019m Linton Besser, welcome to Media Watch.<\/p>\n
And welcome to the return of the brumby wars, with the country\u2019s most tabloid-tabloid embarking on a fresh campaign, not to save Australia\u2019s majestic high-country, but to save those majestic animals destroying it, and bringing out the big guns to help.<\/p>\n
BAN FROM SNOWY RIVER<\/p>\n
EXCLUSIVE<\/p>\n
Acting legend calls cut on \u2018barbaric\u2019 cull of brumbies<\/p>\n
– The Saturday Telegraph, 13 June 2026<\/p>\n
Because who better to offer their expertise than actor Tom Burlinson, the famed Man from Snowy River who had some hard truths for the NSW government:<\/p>\n
Burlinson said there was \u201cno way\u201d that the brumbies could be shot \u201cquickly and humanely\u201d from helicopters flying overhead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– The Saturday Telegraph, 13 June 2026<\/p>\n
His qualifications thus established, the actor had another even more stunning insight:<\/p>\n
\u2026 during his time filming The Man from Snowy River in Victoria\u2019s high country, he saw that the landscape could support space for brumbies.<\/p>\n
– The Saturday Telegraph, 13 June 2026<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right, plenty of room, 44 years ago, in another state altogether.<\/p>\n
The star\u2019s impassioned defence of the Snowy Mountain brumbies, was but one part however,\u00a0<\/p>\n
of a Telegraph series which claimed previous aerial culling had created a brumby bloodbath that was \u2018cruel and unreliable\u2019 horses left to die with broken limbs.<\/p>\n
Nine days ago, the paper\u2019s editor made clear his position:<\/p>\n
The wild brumby is an icon of Australia \u2026 an untamed symbol of our rough and rugged land.<\/p>\n
– The Saturday Telegraph, 13 June 2026<\/p>\n
Yes, try if you can to name an animal more Australian than a horse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Former shock-jock Ray Hadley saddled up too, taking the Telegraph\u2019s readers into the heart of the conspiracy:<\/p>\n
RAY HADLEY:\u00a0\u2026 but why are they intent on doing it? \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
Well here\u2019s the reason. You see, these beautiful Brumbies are a link to our colonial past. A link.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026 So anything to do with our colonial past out the door it goes, including the poor Brumbies down there at Kosciuszko.\u00a0<\/p>\n
– The Daily Telegraph, 9 June 2026<\/p>\n
Over on 2GB, Hadley\u2019s replacement on the wireless was outraged horses were in the cross-hairs and not hogs!<\/p>\n
MARK LEVY:\u00a0All the while you’ve got the feral pigs running around doing their thing \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
We’ve got helicopters up there shooting them? Don’t think so.<\/p>\n
– Facebook, 2GB Sydney, 9 June 2026<\/p>\n
Only problem Mark, is that\u2019s exactly what we have: the aerial shooting of a range of feral species, including deer, goats, and yes, pigs. Which Mark admitted just five minutes later on air after a phone call with the NSW Government but which didn\u2019t stop his team an hour after he got off air from republishing his clever tirade across social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the government\u2019s Wild Horse Management Plan sets out, the program is designed to protect some of Australia\u2019s most precious ecosystems where several threatened species are at risk, in particular from feral horses which saw little emphasis over the past two weeks as the Telegraph cleared space for plenty of the anecdotes of those deadset against the cull, brumby protest organisers, the Brumby Alliance, a horse trainer and an unnamed whistleblower who claimed to be involved in a previous and distressing brumby cull but whose role and whose employer was never revealed. Unfortunately however the paper found no room for the findings of the most recent and comprehensive independent review of the aerial culling program undertaken by an independent vet who, having observed three days of shooting, found no evidence of wounded horses and a notable absence of adverse animal welfare events.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for this claim from a ballistics expert that:<\/p>\n
\u2026 if it took an average of seven shots to kill a horse \u2013 and up to 15 on occasions \u2013 then something was \u201cnot working properly\u201d.<\/p>\n
– The Daily Telegraph, 10 June 2026<\/p>\n
It too was explicitly addressed by a government inquiry back in 2023 a National Parks official explaining:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026 it did not take an average of 7.5 bullets to achieve insensibility or death. Statements to this effect are wrong.<\/p>\n
Median time \u2026 was 5 seconds \u2026<\/p>\n
The purpose of the additional bullets is to provide certainty that the animal is dead \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
– Inquiry Into The Proposed Aerial Shooting Of Brumbies In Kosciuszko National Park, NSW Government Animal Welfare Committee, Answers to Questions on Notice, Hearing: 18 Dec 2023<\/p>\n
Which the Telegraph chose not to report. It was also unwilling to print an op-ed proffered by the\u00a0<\/p>\n
Invasive Species Council, an environmental lobby group, and sent on day two of the Tele\u2019s campaign until last Saturday after we\u2019d asked why the offer had been ignored.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile we heard nought from the paper to that question and several others but a wintry mountain breeze.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If your only goal is outrage and popularity the Telegraph\u2019s campaign is very nifty. Who likes the idea of horses being shot? But doesn\u2019t a newspaper have any other kind of obligation?\u00a0<\/p>\n
What about showing the courage because that\u2019s what it takes to make sure readers get the full set of facts even those especially those they might not very much like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STEVE HART:\u00a0Culling teams have today resumed aerial shooting operations to rein in brumby numbers in Kosciuszko National Park.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754875,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,128,338],"class_list":["post-754874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}