Brumbies being culled illegally

Someone is killing the wild, iconic horses of the Snowy Mountains.

For more than a year, visitors and workers in the alpine region immortalised in Banjo Patterson's Man from Snowy River have been finding the bullet-ridden bodies of the horses known as brumbies.

The shootings, in national parks as well as on private land, have outraged locals and groups formed to protect the brumbies. Shooting them without a licence is illegal.

Despite patrols, forensic evidence and appeals for public help, police have been unable to find the killers - leading to suspicions that their identities are being protected.

Many farmers and conservationists complain of the damage caused by brumbies, and are critical of the lack of adequate management programmes, apart from irregular culls and roundups that have made small inroads into their numbers.

Someone, police and brumby supporters believe, may be taking matters into their own hands.

The bodies of dead brumbies began appearing on McPhersons Plains, east of the Snowy town of Tumbarrumba and bounded by Kosciuszco National Park and large expanses of state forest.

The Victorian Brumby Association was told early last year of the discovery of more than 30 dead horses, many of them killed by neck, stomach and leg shots over the preceding few months.

The Australian Brumby Alliance said one mare had foaled while she was dying, and that another foal had to be put down after being found with a shattered leg.

"I understand during the registered culls in other parts of the country, they're clean heart and lung shots and the animals die instantly," Tumbarumba police sergeant Ian Dodds told ABC radio.

"But in these instances, the perpetrator is not being humane in the way they kill these animals, and that is disturbing."

As many as 200 have now been illegally killed.

While no one has supported the shootings - at least publicly - brumbies remain controversial in the high country. They are a part of Australian culture and a touchstone for its rugged history.

Tough and sturdy, they are descended from runaways of breeds, that included British ponies and draughthorses, South African imports known as 'Capers, and a mix of others.

Bush poet Banjo Patterson popularised the name when he wrote Brumby's Run, the story of a pioneering mountain farmer named Brumby who let his horses run wild and allowed anyone who could capture one to keep it.

"The eager stock horse pricks his ears, and lifts his head on high in wild excitement, when he hears the Brumby mob go by," Patterson wrote.

But they were fixed in Australia's psyche by Patterson's more famous Man from Snowy River: "There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around that the colt from old Regret had got away and joined the wild bush horses."

Farmers dislike them because they compete with stock for grazing, and damage troughs, pipes and fences.

Conservationists says they compact soil and cause erosion, spread disease and weeds, damage waterholes and harm native plants and trees.

Brumby fans say their grazing helps to reduce fire risk and helps keep trails open, and that the horses are valuable for tourism.