Ray Hadley loves many things. He loves the sound of his own voice. He loves advertorials. He loves attention, rugby league, talking and influencing politicians. He also loves ferals.
The Sydney radio host protected feral animals recently with a rant opposing the official culling of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park, in the alpine region of NSW.
During the rant, Hadley said:
“This is just disgraceful.
“…the National Parks and Wildlife Service is responsible for the deaths of those 11 brumbies…shot dead by people with high-powered rifles…and I’ve got these dreadful photos in front of me…”
“…there couldn’t be one lunatic, there’d have to be a group of lunatics, 3 or 4 shooters in the middle of the national park shooting these poor horses.”
If Hadley was a journalist, and not a mere shock jock, he would know to avoid strong adjectives in reporting a story. The rant subsequently influenced politicians. It also saved many other feral animals in NSW – not just horses.
According to the Invasive Species Council:
“…in response to allegations aired by a shock-jock on Sydney radio, the NSW environment minister announced a ban on all shooting operations in Kosciuszko National Park. The ban was supposed to only last two weeks. Five weeks later, it was still in place. We then discovered the ban had also quietly been applied to every national park in NSW.
That meant the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service weren’t allowed to conduct scheduled pest shooting programs to control surging numbers of feral pigs, feral deer, feral goats and feral horses across all of the state’s national parks.
The move could jeopardise nature, jeopardise farmlands and jeopardise livelihoods…” and the ban on culling is an example of “…discarding science, the environment and agricultural industries in the process.”
Thus, Hadley protected hundreds of destructive feral animals all over the state. The same feral animals destroying our native flora and fauna.
Hadley ranted for a few minutes longer, as is his wont, before taking a call from Peter Cochran. Cochran is:
- The Former Member for Monaro
- A former member of the National Party
- A current member of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation
- The owner of a business running horse riding tours in the Snowy Mountains, whose clients want to see feral horses running free during a tour.
- A former soldier, who eagerly reminds Hadley’s listeners that he served in Vietnam. He likens the shooting of the feral horses to a military ambush.
Hadley decided Cochran was a reliable commentator for this story. During his own rant, Cochran tells Hadley:
“This is the most UnAustralian thing I’ve seen in my lifetime”
He’s clearly forgetting the time members of his own party offered to ‘sell’ Australia to the National Rifle Association in the USA. He also forgot that the feral horses, and the other feral animals that he and Hadley protected, are destroying Aussie flora and fauna.
That’s UnAustralian.
Cochran didn’t stop there.
He also claimed that 60,000 odd Australians died in battle for a free country…and implied that those soldiers all died in order to protect feral animals.
Cochran and Hadley then blasted the police, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and at one point, even the Rural Fire Serivce – the volunteers who protect Aussies from bushfires every summer.
The pair condemned the ground shooting, and argue for rehoming of the feral horses.
However, as the Invasive Species Council explains:
“The aerial culling of feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park is not permitted under the management plan. And, while an important component of feral horse management, rehoming and fertility control have proven ineffective at reducing the population at a higher rate than the population itself grows by each year.”
“As difficult as it can be to confront, that leaves humane ground shooting as the essential approach to achieving the population reductions set out in the management plan. Without professional ground shooting, we will not be able to protect Kosciuszko and the surrounding alpine and subalpine regions.”
Hadley naively romanticises the feral horses and call them Brumbies. He is likely to invoke Banjo Patterson’s poem The Man Form Snowy River, or Elyne Mitchell’s books The Silver Brumby, to justify the protection of feral horses in delicate alpine regions. He is not alone.
He is likely to ignore the destruction to Australia’s ecology and native wildlife wrought by feral horses. His comments prove that:
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the northern corroboree frog
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the southern corroboree frog
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the Guthega skink
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves wombats
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves wallabies
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves anemone buttercups
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the golden daisy
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the alpine she-oak skink
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the alpine spiny crayfish
Ray Hadley loves ferals more than he loves the mountain pygmy possum, and many other native species.
He sure loves ferals.
kieranblakewriter 