Plight of the brumbies

"We like army names for the boys, like Sergeant and Major," she says. "For girls, we like Wattle and Willow. At the moment we are on a music theme, like Aria and Symphony."

She hates it when her beloved horses are described as feral pests causing environmental degradation.

"Cattle are also not indigenous to Australia, feral pigs are not indigenous to Australia. They also cause incredible damage to the environment, as do wild cats and dogs," Carter says. "But environmentalists pick on horses because they are big and easily seen. . . . Cattle -- they can't shoot them because they are owned by someone. Horses are not."

Environmentalists such as Muir, however, see what Carter is doing as a well-meaning effort that doesn't reduce the horse population fast enough to protect the environment. Although aerial shooting is not ideal, he says, it is effective.

"Humane treatment of animals is important," Muir says. "But when you are dealing with the last remaining wild land, and animals that don't belong here, you have to make a choice between the lesser of two evils. Sometimes that means controlling the feral animals by methods that work."

But Carter says shooting doesn't always kill the animals right away and they are left to suffer. Or they leave behind babies who starve without their mothers.

Like the traumatized Adam, a buckskin she rescued from the 2000 aerial cull.

"Somehow he missed the bullet," Carter says. Then she shows off some of his tricks.

"Adam, how do you do?" she says, putting her hand out to shake his outstretched hoof.

"Adam, give me a kiss," she says. Without hesitation, he reaches down to nose her on the cheek.

chingching.ni@latimes.com