Feral Goats & Pigs

Feral Goats & Pigs…

Peninsula Goat Eradication up for Award.
Story from the Akaroa Mail 22.3.2024. By Laura Jones.

The Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust is one of three finalists for one of the country’s top environmental awards. It will learn on April 8, if it has won the BioHeritage Challenge Community Award, for its Feral Goat eradication programme.

The other finalists are Gorse busters from Ōkārito in southern Westland, and Ecosystems Restoration on Tākaka Hill in Nelson.
The BPCT’s goat eradication programme involved a broad community across the whole Peninsula rising to an almost overwhelming challenge.

Like every pest that ever arrived in New Zealand, goats on the Peninsula found five-star dining in the native bush. Leaves, stems, bark and juvenile plants were sucked up and the ground underneath trashed. With a capacity to produce up to 6 kids a year, goats can quickly spread, and are second only to deer in the damage they can do to bush. This was becoming very evident on Banks Peninsula decades ago.

The inaccessible terrain here suited expert rock-climbing goats, but not people who wanted to reduce the numbers. Farmers were also worried by increasing numbers of goats which were damaging fences to access grazing, killing vegetation, and being vectors of
disease and weeds.

A Feral Goat Eradication Committee was formed in 2003. It was facilitated by BPCT and included landowners and local rūnanga with
expertise and financial contribution from the Department of Conservation, Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council.
There was good initial progress, but total eradication was elusive.

By 2017 a detailed review produced a revitalised plan. “In an eradication programme like this we needed strategy, resourcing, and determination,” says Penny Carnaby, Chair of BPCT. “We produced a plan that attracted the funding we needed”.

“That plan relied on landowner support, technical expertise and the backing of the agencies already involved. “The drive came from the community who really wanted the goats gone – for good.”

The plan relied on establishing where the goats were and their numbers, so the next phase of mustering and hunting would be successful.

There were known to be seven areas with established herds across the Peninsula, and their locations were pinpointed using farmer reports and spot ting with scopes, binoculars and track cameras.

Given the coastal terrain, in some cases spotting from boats was also needed. A Little Akaloa flock was the first target. Success there led to the other six areas. The largest flock was around Southern Bays area, with 2,187 feral goats removed.

Kiwi Field Crew Ltd is a specialist ungulate and marsupial eradication company. Their teams of humans and dogs were charged with the eradication work.

The indicator dogs detect goats by scent, then bailing dogs round up the goats which in many cases were then sent to the meat works.
The team also took samples for DNA analysis. This will be important in future, should any new goats be found because it will show if they are stragglers from the wild flocks or newly introduced animals.

Part of the programme have included education of all known goat-keepers about fencing and tagging requirements for their animals.
Since the operation was completed in August 2023 there have been no new goat sightings, and the dogs and other detectors have given no indication of persisting goats east of Gebbies Pass.

There is a system to deal with any lingering goat, but BPCT and others involved are confident of the success of the programme.

In total, 4,246 feral goats have been removed from Banks Peninsula since 2018, across 42,500 hectares, involving 316 landowners.

Pam Richardson was involved from the start. “The success is down to being a team that pulled together. Everyone played to
their strengths. “The commitment of our farmers was vital, and we got huge support.

“It demonstrates that farmers are a community that acts for the common good – pests that are my neighbours’ problem to
day could be mine tomorrow.’

While the judges of the Biosecurity Awards will probably be impressed, much more importantly, the community on the Peninsula have seen off a difficult pest. But these are not people who sit on their laurels.
Penny and Pam and others are now drawing on the learning from this operation and considering what can be done about feral pigs.