Thousands of wild horses shot in Australia

Thousands of wild horses have been shot in the mountains of eastern Australia as part of a controversial plan to reduce their population for conservation purposes, the AAP news agency reported on Monday.

These wild horses have lived in the mountainous Kosciuszko National Park in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales (NSW) for 200 years, and have become an integral part of Australian folklore – poems and songs, novels and films –.

The NSW government is trying to reduce the population from 14,380 to 3,000 by 2027 by trapping and relocating them, and when this is not possible by shooting them on the ground and from the air, thus preserving the natural environment in Kosciuszko National Park.

NSW Environment Minister Penny Sharpe announced on Monday that it was no longer necessary to shoot the animals from helicopters, as the population size had been reduced to around 3,000 individuals, AAP reported.

Speaking at a meeting discussing the draft budget, Ms Sharpe said capture and translocation programmes would continue, and the government would explore the possibility of using reproductive control measures to smooth out the population's fluctuating cycle.

Nature conservation activists say these non-native wild horses are destroying wetlands and threatening native species.