Fraser Island Brumbies

The Fraser Island Brumby

The history of the Fraser Island brumby (wild horse) is certainly interesting. Clydesdale horses were brought to the island in the 1800’s to help with the logging industry. They were a large bodied work horse, some of them escaped or were released.

In the late 1900’s Fraser Island was used by the Australian Army to train Arab horses. They were to be used in the Boar War and eventually also in WW1. Again some either escaped or were released. Years of interbreeding between the horses resulted in the Fraser Island Brumby. They lived on the island for many years and were often seen on the beaches and around the communities looking for food. Due to a lack of grassy pastures on the island the brumbies had a limited food source. Their main diet consisted of spinifex which is a colonising plant that keeps the sand dunes together. Spinifex does not have sufficient nutrients to support them though. Also the horses caused erosion by eating and trampling the spinifex, this would make the sand dunes unstable and more prone to wind erosion. In 1993 with World Hertiage listing the decision was made to remove all introduced animals from Fraser Island. The brumbies were either rounded up and relocated to the mainland and some were culled. Eventually by 2005 all the brumbies had been removed from Fraser Island - or so it seemed. For many years it was believed that Fraser Island was completely free of brumbies. But then in 2016 a small group of brumbies was discovered living in secret in a remote part of Fraser Island. An island so big that animals as big as horses can hide and not be seen by humans for more than 10 years !
Quite Amazing