The manner in which these horses were killed was absolutely barbaric. Arriving on ships with the first white settlers in 1788, more than 300,000 feral horses now roam Australia. Conservationists insist that the feral horses are pests, reaching plague proportions in many areas, where they damage biodiversity, displacing all kinds of native flora and fauna, from gum trees to kangaroos. They also fear that some local farmers are slipping their horses into the national parks, where they can feast on prime, untouched grazing land. We're getting falsely sentimental over feral horses while the native wildlife that the parks are established to protect are forgotten about.
Horses are very hard hooved whereas Australian native animals have soft pads.
The horses congregate around water, trampling banks, fouling water and damaging aquatic life and the water habitats of unique mammals such as platypuses. Conservationists also pointed out that it is during periods where trees and plants sprout back after fires that native plants are most vulnerable to being eaten by the horses. Animal welfare groups suggest that birth control methods could be a more humane alternative to sharpshooters in helicopters. But this requires horses to be rounded up, which is deemed impractical after 17 attempts to round up wild horses in New South Wales national parks in the last decade only resulted in the culling of around 150 horses. It is also claimed that the slow and expensive mustering of horses is more stressful than aerial culling.