Asia | Feral ponies

How wild horses sparked a culture war in Australia

A long-delayed brumby cull is proving controversial

Wild brumbies running through the high country of the Snowy Mountains, Australia
Brumbies on the runPhotograph: Getty Images
|SYDNEY

Brumbies are romantic creatures. Australia’s wild horses, descended from the steeds of early settlers, roam the continent’s highest ranges, the Australian Alps. Synonymous with whip-cracking stockmen of yesteryear, they are celebrated in poetry and on a banknote. So when the state of New South Wales culled some brumbies in 2022, it provoked such outrage that park rangers were threatened with firebombing.

Explore more

This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “They shoot horses”

From the February 24th 2024 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Asia

Illustration of national flags, including those of the US, the UK, South Korea, Japan and Australia, tucked into a crisscrossing lattice

Can Donald Trump maintain Joe Biden’s network of Asian alliances?

Discipline and creativity will help, but so will China’s actions

An alleged North Korean soldier after being captured by the Ukrainian army

What North Korea gains by sending troops to fight for Russia

Resources, technology, experience and a blood-soaked IOU


FK Arkadag's Didar Durdyev runs during a Turkmen football championship game

Is Arkadag the world’s greatest football team?

What could possibly explain the success of a club founded by Turkmenistan’s dictator


After the president’s arrest, what next for South Korea?

Some 3,000 police breached his compound. The country is dangerously divided

India’s Faustian pact with Russia is strengthening

The gamble behind $17bn of fresh deals with the Kremlin on oil and arms

AUKUS enters its fifth year. How is the pact faring?

It has weathered two big political changes. What about Donald Trump’s return?