There is something badly missing from the increasingly heated debate about feral horses in Kosciuszko National Park.

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Too often, the debate begins with the heritage of horses and ends with the welfare of horses, while the mountains, rivers, wetlands and native animals being damaged and pushed to extinction beneath their hooves are pushed to the margins.

Long before horses arrived, these mountains, rivers and wetlands was respected Country. They remain living cultural landscapes and some of the most environmentally significant places in Australia.

As a Wiradjuri man who has spent years working on and caring for these landscapes as a Snowy River guide, I've seen firsthand what happens when horses are allowed to trample, trash and pollute fragile Country that was never built to withstand them.

Of course horses have cultural meaning to some people. But that cannot give them immunity from control when they are damaging a national park.

Nor should emotionally powerful claims about feral horse control be allowed to drown out decades of scientific evidence.

This matters far beyond Kosciuszko. Misinformation and disinformation about feral animal control is becoming a political risk to effective invasive species management across Australia. And it is not confined to anonymous accounts or fringe groups online. Misleading and unsubstantiated claims are being irresponsibly repeated and amplified by politicians, commentators and journalists, giving them legitimacy and reach. When those claims gain enough traction, governments can come under pressure to weaken, delay or abandon evidence-based control programs.

That threatens not only feral horse management, but aerial control of deer, pigs and other invasive animals needed to protect native wildlife and Country across Australia.

The question is not whether horses have cultural meaning for some.

It is whether that cultural meaning should outweigh the protection of the mountains, waterways, native animals and cultural landscapes that were here long before them.

The science is not uncertain

Claims that there have been few studies of the environmental damage caused by feral horses simply do not stack up against decades of evidence.

The impacts of feral horses in the Australian Alps have been studied and documented for decades. Research has recorded damage to alpine and subalpine wetlands, streams, soils and native vegetation, while government scientific assessments have identified feral horses as a threat to threatened species and ecological communities.

Feral horses graze and trample vegetation, compact and erode soils, damage waterways and reduce water quality. The habitat of threatened animals, including the corroboree frog, alpine tree frog, alpine she-oak skink, mountain pygmy-possum and broad-toothed rat is affected by........

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