Opposition leader takes shot at ‘inhumane’ brumby culls

The federal opposition leader has described controversial mass culling of wild horses as inhumane and unnecessary and demanded that responsibility for controlling the animals be handed over to local people.

NSW is embarking on a culling of brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park following a recorded increase in the number of invasive species.

Aerial shooting of horses, which was stopped in March 2025 due to the successful reduction in herds, resumed at the beginning of June.

But Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the culls were the work of “bureaucrats in Sydney”.

He called for control of the animal population to be given to local communities, saying management methods from the 1980s were more effective.

“This is a very personal issue for me,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

“I grew up in the area and riding the brumbies into the mountains.

“This is a culling that I think is unnecessary, it’s inhumane.”

While animal advocates argue that animals are trapped and rehomed rather than killed, there are also reactions that horses shot from helicopters have the potential to be left to slowly die.

Brumbies are putting the park’s fragile ecosystem at risk, threatening wildlife and native plants by trampling them.

Mr Taylor’s position is a marked departure from that of Liberal leader Sussan Ley, who, as federal environment minister, sought legal measures to force NSW’s then-coalition government to do more to reduce feral horse numbers.

The state is trying to reduce the number of animals to 3000 by mid-2027.

The latest official estimates for 2025 suggested there would be at least 6,476 and as many as 16,411 brumbies in the national park near the Victorian border.

In 2022, the number of wild horses in the park increased to 23,535.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service is also considering a fertility control trial to prevent the need to kill wild animals.