As an outspoken advocate for horse culls, Swain has been the target of verbal abuse, vandalism, and death threats for years. He’s found concrete nails punched into his car tyres on two occasions, and was once accosted at the local market by a group of “crazy horse women” who told him and his 85-year-old mother to “go suck a dick.” In mid-2020, around the same time that pro-brumby advocates were plotting to dump horse heads on the front lawn of former state environment minister Matt Kean’s residence, Swain says that someone defecated outside his house.“I just thought someone must have been busting and pulled over in our driveway. But then it happened again. And that's when quite a few of the death threats were happening.”
A small herd of Brumbies affectionally named ‘the welcoming committee’ by local horse watchers rest in a patch of Snow Gums in the Long Plains area of the Kosciuszko National Park on August 24, 2020. Photo: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images
This is, after all, an invasive species—the descended bloodline of horses that were introduced to Australia by European settlers as early as 1788, with the arrival of the First Fleet. While the first record of horses either escaping into the bush or being abandoned was in 1804, the industrial revolution and the proliferation of agricultural machinery meant that over time more were released to join the growing herds.“Australia's environment didn’t evolve with 100- to 200- kilo animals with hard hooves stomping through sensitive environments. It evolved with kangaroos and wombats and wallabies.”
Men dressed as Light Horsemen from World War I stand with two brumbies during a protest in Melbourne on June 2, 2020 over the proposed culling of the horses. Photo: William WEST/AFP
“Could things get ugly? Yeah, I reckon. There's some really nutty people in there.”
A Brumby and an Eastern Grey Kangaroo interact in the Yarrangobilly area of the Kosciuszko National Park on August 24, 2020. Photo: Brook Mitchell/Getty Images
