IN another twist in the Lake Gregory station brumbie saga, the horses may now be transported to Margaret River to be used for commercial riding purposes.
Wild Horses Kimberley spokesperson Libby Lovegrove said there had been an offer from a trainer to truck the horses from the Kimberley region to WA's South West, where they would then be adopted off.
Ms Lovegrove is meeting with Indigenous Affairs Minister Dr Kim Hames today to discuss the option.
The leaseholder of Lake Gregory station, the Aboriginal Lands Trust, was ordered by the Pastoral Lands Board (PLB) to remove the feral horses.
Earlier this year there was talk of shooting the horses in an aerial cull, but that option was abandoned after animal rights groups deemed it inhumane.
Another option currently being considered is the trucking of the 5000 horses to Queensland to be slaughtered for human consumption, but Dr Hames said no decision had been made on that option as yet.
Ms Lovegrove said even though she would like the horses to stay at Lake Gregory, transporting the horses to Margaret River would be a much more viable option than trucking them to the Eastern States.
She said the trainer would train them for nothing but the State Government would need to pay for the transport of the horses.
This week Dr Hames visited the Mulan community to investigate ways to save the feral horses and said the first priority was to discuss with local members of the community the best way to save as many as possible.
Dr Hames said the thousands of horses were causing severe environmental damage and the problem had to be dealt with.
"The Pastoral Board issued us with an instruction to reduce the horse population, or the lease would not be renewed which would affect the economic viability of the community," he said.
But Ms Lovegrove said the horses weren't causing any environmental damage and she had only seen about 360 horses in the Lake Gregory region.
"That's a myth put out by pastoralists," she said.
"Horses don't degrade the land, they improve it. The cattle will ruin the lake."
Dr Hames said discussions for the future of the horses included rounding up younger animals and training them in collaboration with the local community.
He said the State Government would establish a budget to break-in and train the horses, and potentially teach local people in horse-related skills.
The Pastoralists and Graziers Association (PGA) Pastoral Committee chair Ruth Webb-Smith said the number of feral horses had reached up to 10,000 and were impacting not only the pastoral leases but also crown land.
Ms Webb-Smith said a decision had to be made soon, but trucking the horses thousands of kilometres would be impractical, extremely costly and financially unviable.
She said the PGA had been voicing its concerns to Dr Hames.
"It's definitely a matter for the PLB, the management responsibility of the pastoral leaseholders involved and ultimately the Government and Minister," she said.
"When it has an increasing impact for pastoral leaseholders in general, it becomes a concern for PGA."