A brumby is a wild (feral) horse in Australia. Although they are found in many areas around the country, the most well known brumbies are found in the Australian Alps region in south-eastern Australia. The majority of them live in the Northern Territory, with the second largest population in Queensland. There are more horses in the wild in Australia than any other country. It is similar to the American mustang. A group of brumbies is known as a mob, and also as a band.

Brumbies are the descendants of escaped or lost horses belonging to the area's European settlers. The first horses imported to the Australian continent were "Capers" that arrived from South Africa and after that there was a shipment of Chilean Horses. Later there were introductions of Timor ponies from Indonesia, British pony breeds, various British draft horse breeds and a strong influence of Thoroughbreds and Arabs. With time this mixture contributed to the growing number of feral horses running wild in Australia. Occasionally they are mustered and domesticated for use as working "stock" horses on farms, rounding up and droving sheep, cattle and other livestock.


The name brumby comes from the horses left behind by Sergeant James Brumby from his property at Mulgrave Place in New South Wales, who left for Tasmania in 1804, leaving horses behind. The name was afterwards used to mean any wild horses. The name may also have come from an Aboriginal word "baroomby" meaning wild in the language of the Pitjara people on the Warrego and Nogoa Rivers in southern Queensland. Banjo Paterson said in the introduction for his poem Brumby's Run published in the Bulletin in 1894 that Brumby was the word for wild horses. A letter in 1896 to the Sydney Morning Herald also says that baroombie is the word for horse among the Aboriginal people of the Balonne, Nebine, Warrego and Bulloo rivers.

Another explanation is that the name comes from Baramba, which was the name of a creek and station in the Queensland district of Burnett, which had been established in the 1840s, and later abandoned, leaving many of the horses to escape into the wild. It has also been suggested that the name comes from the Irish word bromach or bromaigh.

The first recorded use of the term was from the Australasian magazine from Melbourne in 1880, which said that brumbies were the bush name in Queensland for wild horses. In 1885 the Once a Month magazine suggested that brumbies were a New South Wales term.


Culling

There is controversy over removal of brumbies from National Parks, with horse lovers and animal rights advocates seeking to avoid inhumane culling techniques and attempting to organise relocation of the animals instead. The primary reason for the brumbies' removal is that they are incompatible with fragile ecosystems and damage and destroy native flora which may be endangered. Between 22 October and 24 October, 2000, more than 600 wild horses were killed in the Guy Fawkes River National Park by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, many shot from helicopters.


The popular Silver Brumby books by Elyne Mitchell, written for children and young adults, describe the adventures of Thowra, a white brumby stallion in the Australian Alps. These stories were dramatised and made into a movie titled The Silver Brumby (also known as The Silver Stallion: King of the Wild Brumbies), starring Russell Crowe and Caroline Goodall.

The Canberra rugby union team, the ACT Brumbies is named after the horse.

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