Narooma Kinema showing Kosciuszko feral horses film Where the Water Starts

When last counted in 2020, there were reportedly 14,000 feral horses in the national park.

Their numbers are said to increase by 20 per cent each year.

A cull was intended to protect the park by reducing the number of feral horses to 3000.

However the cull was recently suspended.

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Its impact will be revealed when the next feral horse count is conducted before Christmas 2022.

Film-maker Mandy King has explored the issue in Where the Water Starts.

To make the film, King and her partner Fabio Cavadini worked with Indigenous and non-Indigenous community leaders who are concerned about the horses trampling and bogging up the fragile ecology of the headwaters of the Snowy, Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers.

"Over generations, the landscape has been degraded to the point where 34 species of native plants and animals are now under threat," King said.

"The high country has not evolved to handle hard-hooved animals such as deer and especially feral horses," she said.

One of the community leaders featured in the film is Richard Swain, a Wiradjuri descendant raised in the high country who is Indigenous Ambassador on the Invasive Species Council.

"It's at a tipping point now," Mr Swain said.

"If you get the horses off and do a little bit of remediation, this will recover," he said.

Ted Rowley, whose farm adjoins the Kosciuszko National Park, and Ngarigo custodian Aunty Rhonda Casey, who is in the film, will be on the Q&A panel after the film's screening at Narooma Kinema on Thursday, November 17.

The screening is a fundraiser and another 35 tickets need to be purchased before 10am November 10 for it to go ahead.

Tickets can be purchased here.

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