Aerial culling of the Kosciusko National Park saw deer, wild dogs, goats and foxes targeted; however, the most destructive of them all, horses were left avoiding the scientific recommendations.
The park should have been open to public hunting years ago; however, dirty political deals saw the animal numbers increase as there were no adequate culling programs in place.
As it stands now, the greatest threat to the park is horses, yet not a single animal was culled. Hunters can play a massive roll in controlling numbers but are still overlooked for expensive aerial kill missions.
Australian Alps National Parks Facebook page reported the NSW NPWS completed its feral animal control aerial shooting program across Kosciusko National Park and surrounding conservation reserves last week. The results were a total of 561 pest animals being culled – 192 fallow deer, 149 sambar deer, 14 red deer, 96 pigs, 105 goats, 4 wild dogs and 1 fox.
This operation was part of the bushfire recovery response program to reduce the adverse impact of feral pests in areas of the
reserves that have been impacted by recent bushfires, as well as part of an ongoing 3 year plan using Saving Our Species program funding to reduce impacts of deer and pigs on high conservation areas.
These high conservation areas include the montane bogs and fens threatened ecological communities across the park. Aerial shooting is not used to control feral horses in NSW national parks, and therefore horses were not targeted as part of this program. Horse and wallow images: D. Butcher
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