Kosciuszko wild horse numbers less than 6,000 triggering reproductive strategy

Australia Broadcast Center

20-05-2025

The NSW Environment Minister says she will turn to focus on managing current populations of feral horses in the Snowy Mountains after "large efforts" to reduce numbers in the past 18 months.
The 2024 Kosciuszko National Park wild horse population survey, released publicly on Wednesday morning, has estimated between 1,766 and 5,717 horses are left in the park.
The figures are "really reduced" compared to a 2023 survey estimate that around 17,000 horses remained in the park.
The state government is legally required to reduce the number to 3,000 by mid-2027 to preserve the environment of Kosciuszko National Park (KNP).
"We were hopeful that it would go well," Environment Minister Penny Sharpe said.
"We've obviously reduced the number of horses in the park by a large number.
The peer-reviewed survey, the fourth of its kind since 2020, this time tested multiple survey methods across four priority KNP management areas.
"There's been a lot of interest in the way in which we count the horses and there's been a lot of conjecture about that," Ms Sharpe said.
"For us [it's] about constantly refining and improving the way in which we can get as accurate a count as we can.
"But also trying to compare year on year so that we're looking at the same method over a period of time."
Its usual "standard distance sampling" method, which captures horse activity from two aerial observers attached to an aircraft, estimated from 1,766 to 4,050 horses remained in the park's retention zones.
This time around another method called the "mark recapture distance sampling method" was also trialled.
It added a third aerial observer at the front of the aircraft and estimated that the population in the same areas to lie between 2,373 and 5,717.
A thermal imaging survey was also conducted but is still undergoing an extensive peer-review process.
Ms Sharpe admitted it was difficult to get a single number best estimate of the population and hoped the range could be narrowed in coming years.
"Trying to get an accurate number, particularly in the kind of terrain that is Kosciuszko National Park, is really challenging," she said.
"I think we will always have a range and we'll keep going with that as we improve survey methods, particularly as the horses are mostly in the retention areas rather than spread out across the park."
More than 9,000 horses were removed from the park between 2021 and April 30, 2025, with two-thirds of those killed by aerial shooting, a method adopted in October 2023.
"But the large efforts … of the last 12 to 18 months is not going to be needed anymore because the numbers have come down."
Aerial shooting is currently on pause and environment minister did not confirm when the method would recommence.
She said the state government would now focus on stabilising the population that included looking into a reproductive control trial.
"National Parks [and Wildlife Service] is beginning to be able to look at this, about how we would trial this and really start to test it," she said.
"We're not there yet, but the preparatory work is being done on that and I'm pleased."