Parts of Kosciuszko National Park will be closed on weekdays from 9 to 27 November 2026, between 5:45 am and 8:15 pm, while the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service targets feral deer and pigs. The operation is separate from the wild horse programme, which remains suspended pending a population survey. Walkers planning the summit walk should check the NPWS closure map before travelling.
Weekday closures from 9 to 27 November
Parts of Kosciuszko National Park will be shut to visitors on weekdays from Monday 9 November to Friday 27 November 2026. The closure applies from 5:45 am to 8:15 pm on each of those weekdays. The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service said notices will be placed at the relevant public access points, and asked people not to enter the closed areas. A map of the closure sites is published on the NPWS website. The closures were reported by About Regional, which described walking tracks and huts among the affected sites.
This matters to anyone with a date pencilled in for the main summit walk. Kosciuszko is the Australian peak on the Bass list of the 7 summits, and it is the one that people most often slot into a short trip with fixed flights. The park is large and the closures cover particular areas rather than everything, so the NPWS map is the document that decides whether a given trailhead is usable on a given morning.
Deer and pigs, not brumbies
An NPWS spokesperson said the operation targets feral deer and pigs. The agency said its approach has not changed, and that feral animals need to be controlled because of the environmental damage they cause, including to waterways, native habitat and threatened species.
The November operation is separate from the wild horse programme in the park. Shooting operations against brumbies, both aerial and ground, remain suspended until at least 2027 while authorities wait for the results of a population survey.
The Invasive Species Council's view
Jack Gough, chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, supports the operation. He said feral animal numbers in that environment are increasing, and that the effects reach the health of the catchment, water retention and vegetation. His argument is that without ongoing control, gains are undone as the animals spread.
Deer are the species he singled out. He pointed to a westward spread across the state and said deer anywhere west of the Hume Highway should be targeted for eradication. He described a winter cull of 2,000 deer from Kosciuszko National Park as the scale of action required, while acknowledging that nobody likes seeing animals killed. He also said a leaked government report obtained by the council showed the government was not meeting the goals of a 2023 national agreement on limiting the spread of deer.
Local walkers have planned around closures before
The Geehi Bushwalking Club runs camping trips through the Snowy Mountains and the South Coast, and moves into the higher country as the weather warms. Club secretary Frank Bakker said the news arrived while the club was putting together its 2027 itinerary, and that the closures were not a surprise. There have been closures in the past and the club has worked around them.
That is the practical reading for a visitor as well. A weekday closure window with published hours is something you can plan to, as long as you look at the map first and accept that the dates are not negotiable once an operation is running.
The court cases running alongside
On 30 October the Land and Environment Court dismissed a bid by brumby advocate Carmen Jackson to stop aerial culling of wild horses in Yuraygir National Park, near Grafton. ABC News reported the judgment. Jackson had filed a last-minute injunction in late August, arguing that NPWS lacked the statutory authority to cull from the air, and that the park's management plan spoke only of the removal of horses.
Justice Rachel Pepper ruled that Jackson had not produced enough evidence to show that aerial culling breached the National Parks and Wildlife Act. The plan of management required the removal of feral horses, and the way that removal is carried out is an operational matter. In her judgment she wrote that the secretary holds a broad discretion to remove or eradicate feral horses. The government had argued at the September hearing that the word remove is very broad and does not exclude killing. NPWS welcomed the decision and said it would continue to manage feral animals in line with its statutory responsibilities.
After the injunction was filed, the Yuraygir pest management plan was updated before the hearing on 1 October to strengthen the wording on pest control and include aerial culling as a method. NPWS can update pest management plans without ministerial approval.
Jackson said she disagrees with the decision and that the loss will not stop her campaigning. She described aerial culling as inhumane and said other ways exist to remove horses, praising the work of re-homers. She has a further case before Justice Sarah Pritchard concerning aerial culling of wild horses in Kosciuszko National Park. That decision has not yet been handed down.
What this changes for a summit trip
Not much, for most people, and that is worth saying plainly. The affected period is three working weeks in November, and the hours are published in advance. Anyone with flexible dates can walk at a weekend during the window, or shift to December. Anyone travelling a long way for a single attempt should treat the NPWS map as the first thing to check, ahead of weather.
The summit walk itself is unchanged, and the route and access options are set out in our Kosciuszko guide. Australia's high point is the shortest day out of the seven, which is exactly why a closed trailhead can cost a visitor the whole objective: there is no spare week built into the plan. If you are working through the list and want the practicalities for the other peaks, the 7 summits challenge page is the place to start, and general questions sit in the FAQ.
This story is part of This week on the 7 summits, the week's news in brief.
Header photograph: Mount Kosciuszko with snow.jpg by Martinjohnbudden, CC BY-SA 4.0 (licence), via Wikimedia Commons.