WHAT ABOUT ME

[Maureen K Clifford]

WHAT ABOUT ME?

Maureen Clifford © The Scribbly Bark Poet



She was quite game he’d give her that – he thought she’d have a spak attack
or at the least would cut and run but seems not so – she’s keeping schtum.
No doubt he had best give her room for sure she was to bolt and zoom
and try to make a dash for freedom. Fences! This girl didn’t heed them.

Her coat was coloured wattle gold, a thick fur pelt ideal for cold
and rugged mountains where she ran as others had since time began.
But now the thought had crossed the land to cull, remove this little band.
The public seems were not to know – ‘twas Government called for the blow.

With budget cuts and finance tight – some bright spark thought he’d seen the light
and claimed there wasn’t room for all . Our island land was far too small
to let our brumby herds roam free in this twenty first century.
She was just one that had been saved – but she freedom desperately craved.

He knew if he could win her heart that would be the best way to start.
His wish was for this girl to see that there are ways of being free
and whilst capture may seem improper, better that – than from a chopper
being felled. A coup de grace with a swift death? Maybe. Some are.


She was quite game he’d give her that – he thought she’d have a spak attack
or at the least would cut and run but seems not so – she’d made a chum.
He walked away, his footsteps slow, she followed him and with her nose
gave him a shove, so bold…cheeky – as if to say what about me.

[Neville Briggs]

Goodonya Maureen.

[Maureen K Clifford]

Thanks Neville - I'm just a bit fired up about the brumbies at the moment. Whilst I totally understand the need for culling sometimes I can't help but think there has to be a better way of doing it. These people do a marvellous job of saving as many as they can but the numbers are small - and like most organizations they are cash strapped. http://www.hoofs2010incorporated.com/


It is a shame that instead of using our natural resources we continue to breed for the market much the same as our designer dogs are bred rather than giving a pound puppy a home

[r.magnay]

Rather then getting cranky with the people or organisations that have to clean up the mess, you probably should be cranky with the people who caused the problem in the first place Maureen....I do concur it would be nice if there was a better way though.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, Ross, but if we didn't have brumbies in the first place, Banjo Paterson could not have written TMFSR, or most of his stuff, really, which means we probably wouldn't have a bush poetry tradition, which means we would not have had a bush poetry revival, which means we would not have had an ABPA, which means we would not have had this web-site and forum, which means you and I would not be talking to each other...


All Those Horses

What to do with all those horses,
Horses wild across the plain?
Let them be?
Leave them free?
Yet they give the natives pain.

What to do with all those horses,
Horses wild on mountains high?
Let them run
Beneath the sun?
Yet they bleed the country dry.

What to do with all those horses,
Handsome brumbies, so hard-hooved,
Churning soil,
Causing spoil?
Surely they must be removed!

© Stephen Whiteside 18.09.2013


Why is life so complicated...?

[r.magnay]

...okay, okay, forget I spoke...wrote...did anything!..

[william williams]

Bill the old Battler
I often wonder just what and who are to blame the people who just turn them loose to let them fend for themselves for the faithful service that they have given so they may hopefully breed or give them a quick bullet and be called a callus so and so. Or not long back I shot three horses two had very bad cases of Laminitis the other suffered from old age and a bad case of worms That is where a horses hooves mainly the front ones grow faster than they can be worn away making them like snow sleds because the feed happened to be good in those years. Yes I have chased after Brumbies and have caught some both in the mountains and out on the open country and the swamp at Barmah. There have been some very good quality Horses that I have kept and a lot of Poor quality ones as well that I have sent to the dogs meat factories you feed your dogs or do you feed them Rump Steak. The aerial chopper culls do a good job though there marksmanship could be better but they do not leave the good and at times the sick and poor ones hide and are missed the photos that you see are ones that look good but that is not always so. Better get off my soap box but what I have written about is true as much as you hate to see or hear about

BILL WILLIAMS

[Maureen K Clifford]

It's not that Bill - I understand and actually sometimes endorse the need to cull. A death by starvation and thirst is a terrible thing and not to be endured, but what I can never and will never condone is killing where the animal is left to die in agony and I don't believe that killing by chopper achieves a clean kill in many cases. All I am saying is there must be a better way but that better way may not be a cheaper way and so the might of the $ seems to override yet again.

I hold that same attitude towards, roos, wild pigs and our beef and sheep that were tied up in the live export debacle. All animals deserve to be treated with dignity and respect whilst they draw breath even those that are bred for the meat market. They are not JUST a commodity.
And when thge time sadly comes for so many that their life is taken from them for whatever reason then it should be done as expeditiously and cleanly as possible with as little trauma as is humanly possible inflicted on the animal. Sadly from what I have seen this is so often not the case.