The Australian Brumby Research Unit
NEWSLETTERS
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The Australian Brumby Research Unit NEWSLETTERS |
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| October 2008 | |||
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October was a busy month in the bush with two
trips away. The first short 5 day trip was to the west of the Carnarvon
Ranges in Central Queensland with some fellow researchers who are studying
tendon architecture and the other looking at microbes in the digestive tract
of the feral horses. The surface water was just starting to dry up so there were plenty of horses watering at the more permanent springs. There was heavy rain the day we left so horses have now spread out again. Good rain fills small rock pools and temporary water holes so that horses can move to higher country that they haven't been able to get to over the dry season. This gives the country around permanent water a rest which is good for the country and the horses. The horses benefit from the better country up high and tend to fatten up just before foaling time, which is generally November/December. |
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One of the teams vets, Adam Richardson, reverses the immobilizing agent through an IV injection after collaring a horse during the October trip |
The team then spent two weeks in the Gulf of
Carpentaria. We visited an area near Lawn Hill National Park which we began
to study in October last year. Unfortunately, there was a 2 inch rainfall storm after we had darted and collared only 1 horse, so that put an end to the GPS tracking. Before the storm, there would have been at least 200 brumbies watering at the main hole. |
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| However, after the storm there was not a horse to be seen and no foot prints around the permanent water hole. We drove past fresh horse manure in the high rugged country that had no sign of horses before the rain. | |||
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We retrieved the GPS collar 1 week after the storm and it showed that
the horse band had shifted from the black soil flats in a 6 km radius
around the permanent hole to high country which had been well outside
their usual range. |
The Australian Brumby Research Unit will go anywhere to unlock the Brumbies secrets. |
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| There are several studies from the USA and New Zealand that
suggest that wild horses maintain a reasonably strict home range. This appears not to be the case in some parts of Australia where the reliance on feed and water is so critical to survival. These horses had been in poor condition due to overgrazing following a bad (dry) wet season last year. We hope for a better season this year. At least the mares will put on a little weight prior to foaling. |
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Brumbies
near Lawn Hill, North Queensland, at the end of a long dry period. We
had rain shortly after this photo was taken. |
We also spent 1 week in a 50 km strip back from the coast in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The property is near Hells Gate. Fifteen years ago, 100,000 acres of the 300,000 acre property was fenced for the first time. 5,000 feral horses were removed from the 100,000 fenced paddock over a 12 month period. We can only speculate that the unfenced 200,000 had 10,000 brumbies 15 years ago and there has been no culling since, only the occasional removal of feral cattle. | ||
| We know that brumbies in normal seasons double their population
every 4 years, so who knows how many are there now.We certainly saw hundreds
of horses in this tee tree country. Horses ran right through to the beaches and could be seen walking out to the coast chasing the salt couch in the afternoons. The local Aborigines tell us that the horses find fresh water running out of the beach sand dunes and can stay out on the beaches at times. Others wander out and back 10 km inland to the numerous fresh waterholes along the coastal fringe |
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The coastal horses were good types to 15'2 and none less than 14'1. They
were a nice small Thoroughbred type with none of the heavy horse qualities
we saw in the Lawn Hill area horses. |
Coastal country where horses flourish, Gulf of Carpentaria, North Australia. |
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| The coastal horses are the first group we have observed with a very low parasite load. We will investigate this further in the months to come. We will be back there after the wet season to further study their feet and do some GPS tracking | |||
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Brumby high country, near Lawn Hill, Northern Australia
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New research: |
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| Why do the coastal Gulf horses appear to have
a low/no parasite load? How can they live in a sandy environment and still maintain reasonably healthy feet? |
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| Activity for the next month | |||
| I am traveling to the Snowy Mountains in early November to
meet park rangers organize our brumby tracking activities in the new year.
It will be interesting to see the famous Snowy Brumbies and to check their
foot quality and analyze their daily activity.
The wet season is approaching and most of our locations will become difficult to get to. So the next few months will be spent analyzing data, radiographs, etc…….. and trying to finish off a few scientific papers to get the information out there. Equitana is on in Melbourne in November. Our great team member Marg Richardson
will be there with a box full of freeze dried brumby feet for show and
sale. Marg has been on a few trips with us and will be keen to answer
questions. |
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Funding Needs The need for funding of this work is continual. You can do your bit to help fund this program by sending a link to this site to anyone you feel may have an interest in the research. We are also looking to market into the USA Canada and Europe our range of frozen hoofs and poster material. If you have contact in any of these localities, please forward our link to them, so if they have an interest they can get in contact with us |
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Brian Hampson Postgraduate PhD scholar School of Veterinary Sciences The University of Queensland Phone: 041 772 1102 Email: |
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