PILOT WILD HORSE CULL

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Death Valley Author wishes to remain anonymous. To my dismay a petition has arrived in my inbox called ‘Stop the aerial culling of Waler horses on Tempe Downs Station, NT’. I worked in the Territory as a commercial pilot.

My worst memory remains etched into my mind to this day. I was flying from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon at low level to escape the worst of the turbulence and as I came over a small rise I saw a herd of horses hemmed into the end of a small narrow canyon.

They seemed to be in trouble as they didn’t run away which is the first thing they do when you fly over so I slowed the aircraft right down. I went down lower to see what was going on.

There were 3 with broken legs which were standing and trying to move away even though a useless hind leg or front leg dangled loosely. They had been shot but were trying to run even with a hind leg that was swinging loose like a baton.

Some horses had huge gaping wounds pouring with blood on their hindquarters or on their necks. The foals were alive and fine; standing in obvious distress at the sides of their dying dams trying to make them wake up by calling and nudging them.

I could hear the distress calls of the foals over the aircraft engine.

The heat was mind numbing, at least 45 degrees and these horses were shot nowhere near water or shade and left to die a terrible death of thirst trapped in a stony desert canyon with bleeding wounds and broken limbs; unable to reach a water hole.

The birds ate their eyes as soon as they went down and the flies swarmed all over them.

The stallion of the herd was still in his dying moments trying to protect his family from the danger in the sky; rearing up at the plane even though the blood was pouring down his hindquarters.

The horses at Tempe Downs are the descendants of the original horses sourced for the Australian Light Horse Brigade, the horses that carried our soldiers into battle and won us freedom.

There were 160,000 horses sent to the Light Horse Brigade, and over 480,000 Waler horses have laid down their lives in battles in wars, from the Boer war to WW2.

As I watched the stallion went down, still in his dying moments a valiant hero just like his ancestors who carried our brave soldiers into battle with only me to mourn his passing.

Upon landing my aircraft I raced off to a man I knew in the local constabulary.

A six foot four problem solver.

On my WAC chart (the charts pilots use to navigate their aircraft, this is before the days of GPS) I pinpointed the herd’s location.

I told him half the horses were still alive and to take heaps of ammunition and maybe he could still rescue a foal…

All he asked in return was a double scotch and coke on his return.

When I met him some nights later he sat across the bar nursing his scotch and coke.

I could tell by the shattered look on his face that he had found the horses in the death valley.

He said he shot about a third of them. He told me the flies were like black clouds of death and the smell was horrific.

One foal was still alive, calling and calling for the mares to wake up and trying to run away from the ravens.

He shared with me that one of his ancestors had fought in Beersheba in the Light Horse Brigade; and that he said there was little hope for humans, if any in his opinion.

I cannot believe that now, decades later, a petition lands in my inbox that brings that cruel memory to life again and keeps me awake throughout the nights.

My taxes are being used to pay for this barbarity; under the guise of federal funding from the Red Centre’s Biodiversity Fund.

My taxes are being used to kill the descendants of the Light Horse Brigade, the horses that should be grazing in a paddock next to the War Memorial in Canberra.

Will there be a six foot four problem solver to go around patrolling in a 4WD for days on end this time, to finish the job that cannot ever be done from a helicopter?  A job that should never be considered in the first place?

May you run fast this time, faster even than at Beersheba.