Barmah Brumby Preservation Group president Julie Pridmore with Willow, a former orphan rescued from Barmah National Park.
The Barmah brumby sanctuary looks like it will close unless it gets a financial lifeline in the next month.
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The Barmah Brumby Preservation Group, which rescues and re-homes wild horses from Barmah National Park, says it has fodder debts of $12,000 and the lease on the sanctuary property at the edge of the park will be due in June.
The group has raised the spectre of humanely euthanasing some of the remaining 50 horses unless it can find homes for them soon.
The volunteer group has built paddocks, yards and infrastructure on the property neighbouring the park near Picola.
Brumbies have largely been eradicated from Barmah National Park due to a shooting campaign managed by Parks Victoria.
A brumby photographed in Barmah National Park last year.
In a video uploaded to Facebook on April 9, group president Julie Pridmore said since the Barmah sanctuary had been established a lot of other similar places had opened, taking a lot of the attention and support from Barmah.
More brumbies were also being re-homed from other places including Kosciusko.
“We vowed and declared we would save a herd and we did that; we achieved that,” Ms Pridmore said.
“We have 15 bales of hay left and it is not looking like we are getting any donations coming in,” she said on April 9.
“I can’t explain the emotional turmoil, the tears and the heartache and the pain that is going on here.
“This sanctuary must fold and the horses must go. We can’t let the horses lose weight and suffer.“
Ms Pridmore put out a call to anyone who could re-home the horses.
She said they had faced opposition from Parks Victoria and some Indigenous people.
Volunteers taking fodder to stranded brumbies during the 2022 floods.
During the 2022 flood, the group pressured the Victorian Government to provide fodder to the marooned horses in the forest, which were in danger of starving.
Volunteers also took in hay in small boats.
Last year a tribunal found the Barmah group had racially vilified a First Nations person during a controversial campaign to avoid the destruction of brumbies.
VCAT ordered the Barmah Brumby Preservation Group to provide a written apology addressed to an Indigenous person, her family and the Yorta Yorta people that acknowledged the harm suffered from this racial vilification.
The group was also ordered to remove all posters that it had created, sold and displayed that contained depictions or references to the woman, the Yorta Yorta National Aboriginal Corporation or the Yorta Yorta people, and to stop publishing racially vilifying material on social media.
Watch a video about the sanctuary on the group’s Facebook page.
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