21 May 2018
Berejiklian government’s backflip on feral horses endangers 29 native species
Berejiklian Government’s plan to create special legal protections for feral horses in the Snowy Mountains will endanger the survival of 23 plant and eight animal species that are uniquely Australian.
“It is a grotesque misuse of environmental law for the Berejiklian government to give special protected status to a feral animal it knows is destroying fragile wildlife habitat in a heritage area,” Nature Conservation Council CEO Kate Smolski said.
“The feral horse is the most destructive pest species in our fragile alpine areas and the government should follow the science to ensure we pass it on to future generations in a healthy state. This move does the opposite.”
The government’s action to legislate protection for the feral pest species comes just weeks after the independent NSW Threatened Species Scientific Committee signaled plans to list feral horses as a “key threatening process” under the Biodiversity Conservation Act.
A key threatening process is anything that endangers the survival of a species or ecosystem, and includes the impacts of land clearing, foxes and feral cats. [1]
The committee in its preliminary determination [2] states:
Feral horses negatively impact native species and ecological communities in a variety of ways. Habitat damage in streams, wetlands and adjacent riparian systems occurs through selective grazing, trampling, track creation, pugging (soil compaction), wallowing, dust bathing leading to stream bank slumping and destruction, stream course disturbance and incision and sphagnum bog and wetland destruction.
The committee has found feral horses in the Snowy are endangering more than 20 plant species - including the iconic Alpine Daisy and Alpine She-oak - and seven animal species, including three frog species (Alpine Tree, Northern Corroboree, Southern Corroboree) the Alpine Water Skink, the Alpine Spiny Crayfish, Broad-toothed Rat, and Lathams Snipe (a bird).
“These species occur nowhere else and if the damage caused by feral horses does not stop we may lose them forever,” Ms Smolski said.
“It is critical that we control their numbers in our alpine areas, and it must be done as humanely as possible.
“This is appalling development that is another example of the Berejiklian government callous disregard for nature in NSW.
"It also demonstrates once again how the National Party is dictating environmental policy to the whole of the government.”
REFERENCES
[1] A threat may be listed as a key threatening process under the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 if it:
- adversely affects threatened species, populations of a species or ecological communities
- could cause species, populations of a species or ecological communities to become threatened.
http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/topics/animals-and-plants/threatened-species/about-threatened-species/key-threatening-processes
[2] www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/threatenedspecies/determinations/PDFeralHorsesKTP2.pdf
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Forests and wildlifeRivers and wetlands
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