Past Projects - Lake Gregory

Lake Gregory is situated near the north end of the Canning Stock route, a days drive south of Halls Creek, and a few hours south of the now infamous Wolf Creek Crater. It is a massive and stunning fresh water Lake and the surrounding stations are owned and run by the local Aboriginal Communities.

Horses have always been a part of the scenery there and they have originated from various sources...being so close to the Canning Stock route no doubt accounted for some of the bloodlines still there today.

Due to the abundant water supply and lack of population management there the numbers of horses has risen to well over 1000. This has caused alarm with the Ag Dept and EPA as the density of population has taken it's toll on the fragile environment.
We were alerted to the situation by a concerned and devoted admirer of the horses, Libby Lovegrove, who lives in Broome and was trying to organise some kind of option for the horses other than a radical cull as was being planned.

To this end Libby has set up a website which is well worth visiting..

www.wildhorseskimberley.com

My first trip to Lake Gregory was with the outback expert Ross Quartermaine, without whom I'm sure I would have perished! His bush skills and grip of modern tracking technology allowed us to [almost] circumnavigate the Lake to asses horse populations in terms of numbers and types.
To that end we reported the population as stated previously[approximate only!]...with the predominant types being thoroughbred, Anglo Arab, slightly heavier Percheron influenced horses, right down to some Timor type ponies.
The colours were mainly grey, chestnut, bay, black brown with the odd genuine buckskin..[as opposed to transitional grey] Sizes ranged from 13.5hh to 15hh.

A second trip was undertaken some months later with the unsuspecting Aaron Hinks from Sydney , to take more footage and asses the feasibility of a trapping programme.
Unfortunately the logistics of organising numerous groups of relevant organisations has got in the way of seeing the project becoming a reality at this stage, but some light has been shed in that an Australian vet, representing an Arab sheik, has just spent some month there and has left recently with twelve horses that are going to be handled and trained with the prospect of being taken back to the Middle East. If this eventuates and the horses perform well then the fate of the Lake Gregory’s could be looking more optimistic!
We will keep you posted!

For any further information on the Lake Gregory horses contact Libby on

• Email Libby Here