A plan to almost wipe out the Snowy Mountain brumby population over the next two decades has been released by the New South Wales Government today.
The draft Wild Horse Management plan for Kosciusko National Park aims to reduce the current number of wild horses in the national park area from 6,000 to approximately 3,000 in the next five to 10 years.
It then proposes to cut that figure to only 600 over the next 20 years.
Environment Minister Mark Speakman said the horses were damaging the park's fragile alpine and sub-alpine environment.
He said a range of humane control methods including trapping, mustering, fertility control and ground shooting would be used to carry out the cull.
Aerial shooting, brumby running and roping have been ruled out, he said.
Next question: If they are prepared to wipe out 90% of brumbies, what are they going to do with the deer?