Pest Inquiry

Renner and drakes inquiry on goats

Intro

The feral goat is a big problem for farmers and the council. The goat eats all the vegetation in forest and farm land. The best way to mitigate the damaging effect of feral goats in the Bay of Plenty is to inform the public about this pest and spread more poison around New Zealand.

New Zealand is ranked 193rd out of 193 countries at protecting its native species. That is correct, we are the worst at protecting our native forests and animals. We need to mount a different attack to mitigate the harm that the feral goat causes. A single attack will not work. We need to use a range of approaches to control the number of goats in New Zealand so they dont  destroy habitat for our native trees and animals.  There are a number of things that are already being done to control the feral goat. There are some positives and negatives with each approach.  No singular approach is going to mitigate the goat. We need to continue to control numbers with ongoing hunting and poisoning programmes, encourage the public to join the effort and create predator free sanctuaries to allow healthy populations of native species to flourish.

 push and pull factors that influenced my ancestor to emigrate to New Zealand,  a random island less developed and with a different culture.

Backround (How they came to New Zealand)

They were introduced in early 1773, Captain James Cook set them ashore in Marlborough Sounds while he was on his second voyage to New Zealand. Early explorers and settlers bought goats with them for food and used to trade with Maori. More have been imported later on for sailors and miners for food. Today goats are farmed for milk, meat, and fibre from their hair. Feral goats now occupy about 14% of New Zealand but the total population size now is unknown but is estimated to be several hundred thousand which is pretty good so far but we can do better.

In the food web (Diagram)  

Is the goat the apex predator? 

The feral goat is not an apex predator as it is prey to wild dogs, feral pigs and humans. The food cycle begins as a cloud which rains to feed the seeds to enable the plants to grow and the plants need sunlight to grow and bees to pollenate other plants, the sunlight evaporates the water finishing the cycle. The goat can interrupt the food cycle as they eat seeds, baby plant/trees like gorse, shrubs, blackberry and roses, by affecting the bees ability to pollinate plants.  

How it affects our native animals

The feral goat affects our native New Zealand animals by destroying the forests and vegetation, for example it slowly eliminates the kiwi's cover to hide from stoats and possums. The feral goat can consume 1 - 2kgs of grass a day. Many animals eat native trees as their food source, if goats are destroying the vegetation and trees then our other native animals could starve, maybe even go extinct. They can also alter the stability of an ecosystem by eliminating a food source, this will cause another animal to lose its food source and so on until the whole ecosystem is near collapsing.

How it affects our native trees

Feral goats can quickly destroy all vegetation within their reach, threatening native plants and damaging the forest understorey. Goats were used for weed control on developing land. In the early 1900s people had gorse fences as they grow 2 meters tall and cover a large area of space. The feral goats eat baby trees, weeds, fruit and basically everything they can find apart from meat but they can eat eggs although it has to be fresh and the goats are really hungry. The goat can be a pain sometimes and even so they can be handy because they eat weeds that people dont want on farms. The goats eats both native and pest plants but it does alot more of damage to natives by compacting the dirt so its is hard for plants to grow. The goats are eating the natives off one by one and if we dont drop their population then we will have less trees in NZ.

Control Method 1 - Poison

Poison can be a way to lower the population for goats - there are a lot of upside and down sides to it. There are two poisons you can use to kill a goats which are 1080 and methiocarb. Methiocarb is used to control snails, slugs, spider mites and insects on lawns, turf and ornamentals, around building foundations, and in ginseng gardens. The way methiocarb kills goats is that the poison attacks the animal's nervous system and causes it to lose control of its bodily fluids. 1080 is used to kill lots of pests like rats, stoats and possums. How 1080 kills. It causes animals to have muscle spasms and seizures for up to a day or more before death. The down side to poisons is it can kill other animals that you dont want to kill. 

Control Method 2 - Ground Shooting

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Control Method 3 - Aerial Shooting

Shooting from a helicopter is considered a more humane control method, as mobile wounded animals can be promptly located and killed. It is also a more effective method of quickly reducing feral goat populations. Shooting is strongly recommended that only experienced hunters carry out goat control work as poor delivery could result in surviving animals dispersing and becoming very wary of hunters. This control method is better than control method 2.

Control Method 4 - Fencing

Fences are used for keeping the goats out of natvie forest and farm land.

The best goat proof fence is a deer netting fence that is well secured at ground level.The problem is the goats can jump 12 feet or 3 meters high so it will have to be a tall and secure fence if you want to keep them out. This control method is not killing goats its just keeping them out of forest and farm land and ineffective at controling the population.

Food web

Works Cited

BOPRC. “Feral goats - Pests.” Bay of Plenty Regional Council, https://www.boprc.govt.nz/environment/pests/pest-animals/feral-goats. Accessed 26 May 2022.

DOC. “Feral goats: New Zealand animal pests and threats.” Department of Conservation, https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/pests-and-threats/animal-pests/feral-goats/. Accessed 26 May 2022.

Pestsmart. “Ground shooting of feral goats.” PestSmart, PestSmart, https://pestsmart.org.au/toolkit-resource/ground-shooting-of-feral-goats/. Accessed 26 May 2022.

Scion. “CONTROL OF FERAL GOATS BY POISONING WITH COMPOUND 1080 ON NATURAL VEGETATION BAITS AND BY SHOOTING.” Scion, https://www.scionresearch.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/59574/NZJFS1331983PARKES266_274.pdf. Accessed 26 May 2022.