A plan to hire “the snipers of the hunting world” to cull feral goats wreaking “havoc” in the Kaimai Mamaku Conservation Park has been kick-started by a $750,000 grant.
The initiative, driven by Manaaki Kaimai Mamaku Trust, aims to move from controlling feral goat populations to eradicating them.
Trust chief executive Louise Saunders said control was about keeping population numbers low, whereas eradication was about “getting rid of them completely”.
Over the past four years, a Joint Agency Partnership of the trust, the Bay of Plenty and Waikato regional councils, and the Department of Conservation had been working together to get goat numbers down.
“Feral goats wreak havoc wherever they go. They eat understorey [vegetation], which stops forest regeneration, they have the potential to spread kauri dieback disease, and they eat grass at record speeds, severely impacting farm productivity.
Image credit: DOC
