International Reaction To Government Treatment of Australia’s Iconic Heritage Brumby Population Continues

World Horse Day convened equine advocates from 6 countries, they all agreed that aerial shooting of Australia’s Brumbies is not the right answer to any question

COLDEN, NY, UNITED STATES, July 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- An International Zoom meeting, hosted by Equine Collaborative International on July 11, 2026, was intended to be a celebration of World Horse Day. Speakers included representatives from Australia, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom and the United States, from a different parts of horse industry or advocacy but all found common ground in their disgust at the deliberate, deplorable treatment of the Brumbies which was ordered by the Australian Government led by Minister for the Environment, Penny Sharpe, and Premier of New South Wales, Chris Minns; and supported by the Non-Government Organization (NGO) Invasive Species Council (ISC), led by Jack Gough.
Gough has used opportunities with the Australian media and on social media to proclaim, “we don’t need Americans coming to Australia telling us how to manage our landscape.” Gough joined the ISC in 2021 as Policy Advisor, he became the CEO in April of 2025. This begs the questions…Why is he responding to global knowledge of the horrific treatment of Australia’s heritage horses now? These cruel, inhumane acts have been on the world radar for years, was he oblivious to that fact?
According to Marilyn Nuske, “In the news report where Jack attacks Americans, he attacked my petition, signed by Americans. Daily Telegraph got the data 130,000 Australians, 90,000 overseas. My response…Does it matter who signed? The international equine community is disgusted by barbaric cruelty!”
The eyes of the world are turned to Australia; they are witnessing animal cruelty in the form of aerial shooting that was outlawed in 2000 after public outrage followed the Guy Fawkes River National Park cull. It is highly unlikely that any shooter can get an effective kill-shot on a running horse from a flying helicopter. The horses are being riddled with bullets. Horses are found with up to 15 bullet wounds. Wounds that can cause long painful deaths as horses bleed out, drown if they happen to be shot in a lung or succumb to infection.

Marilyn Nuske, admin of the Brumby Action Group which has been in existence for 6 years and has membership exceeding 32,000 people, said, “The Park Managers in New South Wales (NSW), Australia are forging on with barbaric aerial shooting of Brumbies, relying on a biologically impossible population counts, with an increase in numbers from the last count of up to 300%, to justify the aerial shooting.”
Up to 3,000 Brumbies can live in four retention zones across the park, until a new management plan is struck in 2027, and Advocates believe there are currently only one third of that number remaining in the Park.”

Sarah Michaels, co-admin of the Brumby Action Group discoursed on the hypocrisy being practiced in the courts concerning Australia’s animal cruelty laws. Michaels stated, “Michael Anthony Holmes was sentenced to 15 months in jail for dragging a kangaroo behind his vehicle. Magistrate Roger Clisdell’s words were unambiguous. Mr Holmes, he said, believed the kangaroo had “no rights, no entitlement to mercy, no entitlement to fair treatment.” “It was, in Mr Holmes’ own words, just a pest to be removed from his property.
The court, rightly, found that thinking unconscionable.”

“NSW Government authorized aerial shooting of Brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park. Shooters in helicopters, firing at animals galloping at up to 60km per hour. Those with experience doing exactly this have been frank: a clean, single-shot kill is nearly impossible under those conditions. Horses are hit multiple times, in any part of the body, and death can take hours — or days. If a private citizen did this to a single animal, they would face the same courtroom Mr Holmes did.”
“In May 2026, Environment Minister Penny Sharpe released population estimates that were biologically impossible. Independent scientists have said plainly that the numbers do not add up — yet the government accepted them without question as the basis for resuming aerial culling. One is entitled to ask what purpose those inflated figures serve.”

“The law cannot credibly punish one man for treating an animal as a pest with no right to mercy, while simultaneously authorizing a government program that operates on the identical premise — just with better paperwork and a helicopter.”

“Animal cruelty does not become acceptable because it is issued by ministerial decree. The question Australians should be asking is a simple one; if the standard applied to Mr Holmes were applied equally, who else would be in the dock?”

On July 9, 2026, Michaels wrote, “Today, Judge John Robson sat in the NSW Land and Environment Court and refused to stop the killing.
A killing spree by government. Aerial shooters, in helicopters, gunning down brumbies in Kosciuszko National Park — horses whose numbers were never properly counted. The last aerial survey physically counted 819 horses on the ground. The government took that number and multiplied it into a "population" of anywhere between roughly 6,500 and 16,000 — a ten-thousand-horse guess dressed up as science. This cull is being run on numbers nobody can verify and the government has never had to prove.
The judge found no breach of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. No breach of standard operating procedure.
Jack Gough welcomed it. Called the operation professional. Humane. Necessary.
Ask yourself; humane compared to what?”

“Now a mountain full of heritage horses, shot from the sky, on numbers Labor and the Invasive Species Council know are shaky — while the one court that could have paused it decided not to. The case returns to court on July 17, 2026. A world of concerned citizens awaits the decision.”

Australia, like most countries was built on the backs of horses. With the 1982 release of the film, ‘The Man From Snowy River’, Brumbies were shared with the world and now the world is watching as a misguided government destroys one of its country’s greatest tourist attractions and natural resources.

Please call the Australian consulate and express your opinions on the Government orderd Aerial shooting of the Brumbies. Find your consulate numbers here: https://share.google/LRRXO7FNrVCwXgRIF

Barbara C Moore
+1 716-912-2100
411eci@gmail.com
Equine Collaborative International

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