Wild goats on Canterbury's Banks Peninsula in the crosshairs

Friday, 25 October 2019

Feral goats cause havoc at the Taumarunui town reserve. (First published July 2017)

Feral goats running wild across parts of Banks Peninsula will soon be locking horns with agencies determined to see them gone.

Close to 1000 wild goats are now believed to be living in herds throughout much of the peninsula, having escaped through inadequate fences or been released to help control gorse and then left to breed.

Their browsing and stomping can have a major impact on biodiversity and ecosystems, and on farming. Not only can they damage fences, compete with livestock for pasture, and spread weeds and diseases, including lice and footrot, but also they eat native species, strip the bark from mature trees and prevent forest regeneration by heavily browsing young trees.

A herd of feral goats on Banks Peninsula. It is believed there are close to 1000 running rampant.

A successful cull of the goats in the Little Akaloa area last summer is likely to be the blueprint for eradication efforts in five parts of the peninsula over the next five years.

**READ MORE:

A wild goat cull around the Little Akaloa area last summer got rid of most of the pest animals (file photo).

* Fences essential to stop marauding feral deer and pigs damaging Christchurch's Port Hills

* Doing a Zealandia on Christchurch's Port Hills: New eco-hub move mooted

Wild pigs and deer have also been a nuisance on parts of the Port Hills. A file photo of pigs at night in the Omahu Reserve.

* Peninsula wild goat cull successful

* CCC says Bottle Lake Forest pig problem under control**

Feral goats have been a problem on Banks Peninsula for years. A major five-year initiative to eradicate the pest is being planned.

Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust general manager Maree Burnett said it was part of the Pest-Free Banks Peninsula programme and would be a major collaborative approach involving landowners, iwi, Environment Canterbury (ECan), the Department of Conservation, the Christchurch City Council and the trust.

Professor David Norton of Canterbury University's school of forestry wants Christchurch's Port Hills turned into an eco-sanctuary. (Video first published May 3, 2019)

It was difficult to say precisely how many wild goats were on the peninsula, but it was 'many hundreds' and approaching 1000.

The southeast of the peninsula across from Duvauchelle and Akaroa was largely feral-goat free. The five pockets with herds were mostly across the rest of the peninsula and on the Port Hills, she said.

Goats bred for meat rather than dairy purposes now made up most of the wild population.

'Those little white goats you see on farms are much less likely to go rogue.'

The eradication would be a 'technical, sophisticated operation', Burnett said.

The Little Akaloa programme had involved mustering as many feral goats as possible for taking to the freezing works. Hunters then shot those remaining.

'Unfortunately, the goats don't have any respect for property boundaries or fences, unless they are specifically goat fences.

'They are remarkable animals really. But they are extremely destructive to native habitats.'

Details of the feral goat management plan had yet to be settled, she said.

ECan principal adviser biosecurity Laurence Smith said new rules had been introduced to ensure landowners and occupiers made their goats identifiable and fenced them appropriately.

'Landowners will have the choice to either continue farming goats or not. In the end, each individual landowner will have to decide which choice is the most viable economically.'