Brumby advocate loses bid to stop aerial culling in NSW national park
Aerial culling will be able to resume in a northern NSW national park after a court ruled the state government was allowed to "eradicate" brumbies.
A brumby advocate has lost her bid to stop the aerial culling of wild horses in a northern New South Wales national park.
Carmen Jackson filed a last-minute injunction in the Land and Environment Court in late August to stop a planned cull of feral horses in the Yuraygir National Park (YNP), near Grafton.
Ms Jackson said the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) did not have the "statutory authority" to carry out aerial culling in the park.
She said the park management plan used the word "removal" to describe how brumbies would be dealt with.
Justice Rachel Pepper today dismissed the case.
She ruled Ms Jackson had not provided enough evidence to prove aerial culling was in breach of the National Parks and Wildlife Act.
Justice Pepper appeared for a matter of minutes, saying the judgement would be published, before standing down the court.
"Jackson bears the burden, on the balance of probabilities, of proving that the Deputy Secretary unlawfully authorised the removal and killing of the feral horses from the planning area," Justice Pepper wrote in her judgement.
The government had said during the September hearing that the word "remove" was "very broad" and did not exclude "killing things".
Justice Pepper ruled that the plan of management for the park, which comes under a certain section of the NPW Act, required the "removal of feral horses", but the manner in which this was carried out was "an operational matter".
Justice Pepper said the secretary was "authorised, if not required, to remove horses" from the park under the National Parks Act.
After the initial injunction was filed, the YNP pest management plan was updated before the October 1 hearing to strengthen language around pest control to include aerial culling as a method.
NPWS can update pest management plans without ministerial approval.
Ms Jackson has filed another case against the government before Justice Sarah Pritchard in relation to aerial culling of wild horses in the Kosciuszko National Park.
A decision is yet to be made in this case.
