FINAL REPORT FOR THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT
OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND HERITAGE
MAXIMISING THE CONSERVATION BENEFITS OF THE
COMMERCIAL GOAT INDUSTRY IN AUSTRALIA
Published June 2004
Prepared by: David M. Forsyth¹ and John P. Parkes²
¹ Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research
Department of Sustainability and Environment
123 Brown Street
Heidelberg
Victoria 3084
Australia
² Landcare Research
P.O. Box 69
Lincoln 8152
New Zealand
© Commonwealth of Australia (2004).
Information contained in this publication may be copied or reproduced for study, research, information or educational purposes,
subject to inclusion of an acknowledgment of the source.
This report should be cited as: Forsyth, D.M. and Parkes, J.P. (2004). Maximising the conservation benefits of the commercial
goat industry in Australia.
The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the
Commonwealth Government or the Minister for the Environment and Heritage.
This project (ID number: 40499) was funded by the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Heritage
through the national threat abatement component of the Natural Heritage Trust.
2
Contents
Executive Summary..................................................................................................3
1. Introduction ..........................................................................................................7
2. Background ...........................................................................................................7
3. Objectives ..............................................................................................................8
4. Results....................................................................................................................8
4.1 Defining feral and domestic goats...................................................................8
4.2 Evaluating the risks of establishment of new populations of feral goats ......9
4.2.1 Extent of domestic goat farming in Australia...........................................9
4.2.2 Changes in the distribution and density of feral goats in Australia.......10
4.2.3 Conditions for establishment of new populations of feral goats............13
4.2.4 Predicting the future distribution of feral goats.....................................15
4.3 Current legal and regulatory instruments to define and manage goats .....16
4.3.1 Commonwealth legislation.....................................................................19
4.3.2 State and Territory legislation ...............................................................22
4.3.3 Local Government legislation ................................................................27
4.4 Commercial harvesting of feral goats ...........................................................27
4.4.1 History and structure of the feral goat harvest industry........................27
4.4.2 Factors affecting the sustainability of the feral goat harvest industry ..43
4.5 Commercial harvesting of feral pigs ............................................................46
4.5.1 History and structure of the feral pig harvest industry...........................46
4.5.2 Factors affecting the sustainability of the feral pig harvest industry .....54
4.6 Maximising conservation benefits of commercial harvesting of goats.........55
4.6.1 How much can commercial harvesting reduce goat densities? ...............56
4.6.2 Is this enough to provide conservation benefits? .....................................56
4.6.3 Harvesting scenarios................................................................................58
4.6.4 Management options to minimise threats from domestic goat farming ...62
4.7 Key policy issues, information gaps and recommended solutions ................63
4.7.1 Risks of new feral goat populations establishing ......................................63
4.7.2 Lack of information on current management chosen by landholders .......65
4.7.3 Relationships between livestock stocking rates and biodiversity, and how
management can achieve the best biodiversity outcomes .....................................66
5. Summary of key recommendations..................................................................69
6. Acknowledgements ............................................................................................70
7. References...........................................................................................................70
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Executive Summary
Objectives
1. Review and evaluate methods developed for assessing the risks of new feral goat
populations establishing through escapes from new and existing goat enterprises.
2. Describe the different legislative and policy instruments used by jurisdictions in
Australia to manage feral and domestic goats, particularly as they affect
commercial harvesting, and review their efficacy and utility in limiting the impact
of feral goats on the environment and native biodiversity.
3. Describe the nature of the commercial harvesting industries for feral goats and
feral pigs and their abilities to deliver sustained benefits to biodiversity values.
4. Consider whether the current or potential legal and policy instruments used to
manage goats enhance or hinder the collateral benefits (if any) to the environment
and native biodiversity.
5. Recommend changes to legal or policy instruments that might better benefit
biodiversity outcomes.
6. Recommend research and other activities required to address gaps in knowledge
that are needed to clarify the costs, constraints, and benefits of commercial
harvesting as a method, either alone or in combination with others, to manage
feral goats.
Main findings
Background information
• The status of goats as feral or domestic animals is clear at the extremes.
Domestic goats are those held under some combination of animal
husbandry (owned, identified, restrained, managed for population structure
and density, and receive welfare). Feral goats are free-living and not
subject to livestock husbandry but may be ‘owned’ in the sense that access
for harvesting or control is determined by the owner or occupier of the
land. However, some goats have one or more of the domestic
characteristics but in all other respects are indistinguishable from feral
animals with no husbandry. This complicates enforcement of some
legislation.
• The number of truly domestic goats, mostly held for fibre production, has
fallen from about 700 000 in the late 1980s to c. 200 000 at the last survey
in 1998/99. The number of feral goats that have been domesticated (to
varying extents) appears to be increasing. Feral goats occur over c. 1.2
million km2 of Australia. The distribution of feral goats appears to be
stable in the semi-arid rangelands where their distribution is more
continuous, but increasing in the western slopes of the main divide in
eastern States where their distribution is patchier.
• There is only anecdotal information on the causes of establishment of new
feral goat populations. This is insufficient to categorise risks and to
recommend defensible legislative or management changes to deal with this
issue.
4
Commercial harvesting
• We estimate that about 1 million feral goats were removed annually in
2001–2003 by commercial harvesting. Most of these goats were
slaughtered at about 15 Australian abattoirs and exported as either frozen
whole carcasses or frozen cuts. The numbers commercially harvested in
2001, 2002 and 2003 were similar to those harvested annually during the
early 1990s.
• From 2001–2003, between 70 000 and 100 000 goats (mostly feral) have
been exported as live animals for slaughter at overseas abattoirs. The
future of this industry is less certain than the meat export market.
• Goats are either trapped at water in areas where they are forced to drink
(the driest and hottest areas) or mustered. This has implications for supply
at the abattoirs and potentially affects the profitability of some abattoirs.
In Western Australia, most goats are trapped during October-March (when
they must drink at stock watering points), and the supply to abattoirs is
thus highly seasonal. In the eastern States, a larger proportion of goats
appear to be mustered and the supply is more evenly spread through the
year.
• Landholders have many motives for capturing or mustering feral goats for
sale. Some see feral goats as biodiversity pests and/or competitors with
livestock and essentially subsidise their control to low densities by selling
the animals. Others see feral goats as a profitable resource and either take
large but infrequent harvests or regular sustained harvests. Others see feral
goats as a means of controlling weeds, and harvest excess animals as a byproduct, resulting in high population densities. However, many
landholders do not harvest feral goats despite current high prices for such
goats.
• The price paid to landholders and the costs of capture appear to be the
main factor determining how many feral goats are commercially harvested.
However, harvest at a property level is also influenced by many other
factors including the purpose of the farming enterprise, the profitability of
their main enterprise, range condition and de-stocking needs, occasional
peer pressures and governmental regulations, and the need to control
weeds. Governments can influence only some of these factors.
Governments cannot easily influence market prices, but could improve the
profitability of goat harvesting by taxes or subsidies that reduce the costs
of capturing goats. Government can sometimes influence where domestic
goats are held, where feral goats are controlled, and the timing of destocking via regulatory instruments - ideally based on range condition
monitoring systems.
− The Commonwealth government can influence the cost structures and
profitability of the industry via regulations affecting the quality control
chain (i.e., capture welfare, transport, identification rules, and
inspection costs).
− All governments may directly affect goat control (which may include
some component of commercial harvesting) by conservation prioritysetting systems (for particular reserved land or species) and by funding
through the Natural Heritage Trust. Some States specifically define the
status of domestic and feral goats, indicate management
responsibilities, and have the power to spend taxpayers’ money to
5
•
•
manage them should they choose to do so (WA, SA, Vic and QLD).
Other States (NSW, Tasmania and NT) lack one or more of these
factors in their legislation.
− Local governments appear to have variable ability to spend ratepayers
funds to manage goats depending on State legislation. However, few
appear to do much, leaving it to landholders or their legal or voluntary
organisations (e.g., Pastoral Boards and their equivalents, and
Landcare groups).
There are no data with which to evaluate whether or not commercial
harvesting of feral goats provides any sustainable benefits to the
environment or native biodiversity. However, the benefits will likely
depend upon the densities to which goats are reduced, the habitat, and the
values affected. The benefits are also likely to vary with rainfall and the
numbers of other herbivores present. Commercial harvesting can also be
used as a first step in any pest control strategy, although this can be
compromised if the harvest becomes an end in itself.
Commercial harvesting occurs in only part of the feral goat range (the
semi-arid rangelands and parts of the rangelands west of the main divide).
Not all native species listed as threatened by feral goats benefit from this
harvest either because they occur outside the areas harvested or potentially
because too many goats remain after harvesting.
Key issues and information gaps
Risks of new feral goat populations establishing
• Goats that escape from captivity may move into goat-free areas and
establish new populations, or may move into areas where feral goats are
being controlled.
• However, there is no information on the causes and frequency of events
that lead to the establishment of new feral goat populations, and therefore
on how managers should best deal with these risks.
• Stricter goat-fencing standards and restrictions on holding domestic goats
are not supported by the majority of landholders and goat meat producers.
Lack of information on current management chosen by landholders
• Management decisions on commercial harvesting are made at a property
level, but there is no information on the proportion of landowners choosing
different harvesting strategies. Therefore, the efficacy of any policy or
legislation that attempts to change landholders’ behaviour with respect to
commercial harvesting is unknown.
Relationships between livestock stocking rates and biodiversity, and how
management can achieve the best biodiversity outcomes
• It is unclear how often feral goats are reduced by commercial harvesting to
densities at which conservation benefits are achieved. Harvesting does
reduce feral goat densities, but it has been insufficient to halt population
increases over large areas where feral goat densities had been reduced by
control or drought (e.g., the pastoral rangelands of Western Australia). It is
unclear whether the harvesting has provided significant overall benefits for
rangeland condition or biodiversity values.
• Sustained high prices for goat products relative to sheep products could
result in a change from lower densities of feral goats to higher densities of
managed goats.
6
•
The best long-term biodiversity outcomes would result from formally
linking trends in biodiversity (from monitoring) to required changes in the
abundance of livestock (of which goats are one component) and other
herbivores. Hence, both managed and unmanaged (i.e., including feral
goats) livestock should be included in stocking rates. Stocking rates would
thus be determined by trends in biodiversity, and the costs of feral goat
control would be borne by the landholder.
Key recommendations
1.
The Department of the Environment and Heritage and State conservation
agencies should prioritise where they need to actively control goats independent
of where commercial harvesting occurs.
2.
States should encourage landowners who are not commercially harvesting feral
goats to do so by promoting its financial benefits and noting tax incentives
available for investment in infrastructure to capture goats.
3.
A costed strategy with options for further action should be developed for use by
landowners who wish to use commercial harvesting as the initial step to control
feral goats as pests.
4.
Future amendments to State ‘national park’ legislation should clarify the
unwanted pest status of feral goats on lands in protected tenures, partly to avoid
potential contradictory legal definitions of feral goats as actual or potential
declared pests and as game animals.
5.
State agencies should consider how to impose legal restrictions on the holding
of domestic goats and for standards of management where they are permitted,
but these should be commensurate with the risk such enterprises pose to the
public good both in situ and on adjacent lands.
6.
Laws to bring feral goats (where goats are permitted) under ‘stocking rate’ rules
rather than ‘declared pests’ rules on leased and private land may provide better
outcomes, but only if they are enforced and the effects monitored.
7.
Landowners and leaseholders in the pastoral rangelands should be surveyed to
ascertain their views on feral goats and their consequent management intentions
(e.g., as resources, pests and weed control agents) for goats on their land.
8.
The relationships between feral goat (and other herbivore) densities and
biodiversity should be investigated at sites under different management
strategies.
9.
The benefits and costs to biodiversity of maintaining high densities of goats to
manage exotic weeds should be determined experimentally.
7
1. Introduction
The Department of the Environment and Heritage (DEH) has published a Threat
Abatement Plan for feral goats (Capra hircus) (Environment Australia 1999). That
plan aims to “prevent feral goats from occupying new areas in Australia” and “ensure
that development of a commercial goat industry does not compromise conservation of
native species or ecological communities”. In 2003, DEH commissioned the Arthur
Rylah Institute for Environmental Research (Department of Sustainability and
Environment, Victoria) to review aspects of the commercial goat industry, and that for
feral pigs (Sus scrofa), with respect to maximising its potential benefits for
biodiversity conservation in Australia.
2. Background
Feral goats are one of five feral vertebrates in Australia listed under the Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) as a key threatening
process. The others are feral cats (Felis catus), rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus), feral
pigs (Sus scrofa), and foxes (Vulpes vulpes). However, feral goats also have economic
value either exported live or as meat, and large numbers have been commercially
harvested. There is no doubt that the size of some of these harvests can reduce feral
goat populations and thus potentially reduce the impacts of feral goats on the
environment and native biodiversity. The issues about this, from a conservation
perspective, are:
• Is commercial harvesting undertaken at scales sufficient to provide general
benefits?
• Where commercial harvesting is undertaken, is the harvest sufficient to
reduce goat populations to protect the conservation values being
threatened?
• Even if it is enough, how frequently should harvesting or control be
imposed to sustain the conservation benefits?
This is the crux of the matter addressed in this report. If the goats are too valuable,
relative to other livestock, it can (a) pay to sustain a regular harvest (a maximum
economic yield) from a population that probably exceeds the level at which
environmental damage is unacceptable, or (b) to take a large but infrequent harvest,
allowing goat numbers to increase to levels that maximise the cost/benefit budget at
each harvest but exceed damaging thresholds for part of the time. In theory, the best
economic option for a landholder will depend on how goat densities (and so costs of
harvesting) and market prices fluctuate. The best conservation outcome will depend
on the length of time, timing with respect to rainfall, and the extent to which goat
densities exceed levels that cause unacceptable damage to native species and
communities or alter the trajectories of these ecosystems.
However, landholders have a continuum of attitudes towards feral goats, ranging from
ignoring goats as a commercial resource, to managing goats to maximise their
profitability, to treating them as a pest.
This report reviews the current commercial harvesting of feral goats and feral pigs,
and attempts to identify conservation and environmental benefits and costs associated
8
with each of the above regimes, particularly in light of legislation that attempts to
regulate their management.
3. Objectives
1. Review and evaluate methods developed for assessing the risks of establishing
feral goat populations through escapees from new and existing goat
enterprises.
2. Describe the different legislative and policy instruments used by jurisdictions
in Australia to manage feral and domestic goats, particularly as they affect
commercial harvesting, and review their efficacy and utility in limiting the
impact of feral goats on the environment and native biodiversity.
3. Describe the nature of the commercial harvesting industries for feral goats and
feral pigs and their abilities to deliver sustained benefits to biodiversity values.
4. Consider whether the current or potential legal and policy instruments used to
manage goats enhance or hinder the collateral benefits (if any) to the
environment and native biodiversity values.
5. Recommend changes to legal or policy instruments that might better benefit
biodiversity outcomes.
6. Recommend research and other activities required to address gaps in
knowledge that are needed to clarify the costs, constraints, and benefits of
commercial harvesting as a method, either alone or in combination with
others, to manage feral goats.
4. Results
4.1 Defining feral and domestic goats
The biological and legal status of a goat, either as an owned domestic animal subject
to livestock husbandry or as a free-living feral animal, is clear at the extremes.
However, it is often unclear for animals that are only loosely managed but are owned,
often only in the sense that they ‘go with the land’. An animal’s status can also change
with circumstance, e.g., when an owned domestic goat escapes and is not recaptured,
or when a feral animal is captured and used as livestock. Thus, ownership per se is
not a particularly reliable factor to distinguish feral and domestic goats. Livestock
husbandry and use are perhaps more reliable discriminators, but again this can be
obscure for free-living populations that are infrequently harvested. Lack of certainty
about which goats are domestic and which are feral on private and pastoral leasehold
land can hamper effective policy and management.
9
State ‘national park’ legislation is often less than clear about the status of goats as
‘fauna’ or ‘pests’ on the tenures covered by these acts. Goats are often included, by
implication, in the definitions of animals, fauna, or mammals and so not specifically
distinguished from native and protected species. However, they are simultaneously
defined as pests because of their listing as a key threatening process in the EPBC Act.
The practical implication of this dichotomy appears to be that goats are often
protected from casual or recreational shooting and harvesting but not from official
control, presumably under the management planning rules in the acts, on land
reserved for conservation purposes. State ‘agricultural’ legislation is often more
specific about distinguishing feral from domestic goats, but varies on how to manage
these differences.
Our working definitions for this report are similar to those used by Freudenberger
(1993) and Parkes et al. (1996a):
Feral goat: Any free-living goat not subject to livestock husbandry. It may be
‘owned’ in the sense that access to it for harvesting or control is determined by the
owner or occupier of the land on which it currently lives.
Domestic goat: Any goat owned and subjected to livestock husbandry. Livestock
husbandry would include at least one of such things as individual identification via ear
tags or brands, provision of health care, constraints on the animals’ movements and
location, and management of their sex ratios, breeding and population size to some
target.
4.2 Evaluating the risks of establishment of new populations of feral goats
There are four ways that new populations of feral goats might be established:
• By escape and spread from existing domestic goat herds;
• By in situ abandonment of domestic goat herds;
• By translocation and release into the wild of domestic or feral goats to
new areas they would not reach by natural dispersal;
• By natural dispersal from current feral goat populations. Dispersal
might be either into areas without goats or into areas where goats are
under effective control.
The terms of reference of this review are largely concerned with the first three ways
of establishment and spread. However, given the uncertain status of many feral goat
populations and their current wide distribution, we will also discuss the last case.
In this section we summarise information on changes in distribution of feral goats at
large and small scales, and speculate on the conditions that promote or inhibit
establishment of new herds of goats - both domestic and feral. This information will
then be used to give some context to our evaluation of potential methods to assess the
risks and potential extent of feral goat range in Australia.
4.2.1 Extent of domestic goat farming in Australia
Estimates of the numbers of domestic goats in Australia were collected in the annual
agricultural survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics between 1981/82
10
Figure 1. Reported numbers of domestic goats held in Australia, 1981/82 to 1998/99.
Source: Livestock and Livestock Products, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
Catalogue No. 7221.0.
to 1998/99, but the question has not been included in the survey since 1998/99. The
number of domestic goats in Australia peaked at nearly 700 000 in the late 1980s,
with most being held in New South Wales (Parkes et al. 1996a). About 200 000
domestic goats were reported in the last survey (Fig. 1).
The extent of the apparent changes need to be treated with some caution because the
minimum ‘estimated value of the farming operation’ included in the survey has varied
greatly: $2500 from 1981/82 – 1985/86, $20 000 from 1986/87 – 1991/92, $22 500 in
1992/93, and $5000 since 1993/94. The peak during the late 1980s is therefore likely
to be underestimated because it did not include smaller enterprises. The data are also
complicated by the likelihood that respondents reported feral goats as domestic in
years when they were worth most. The data for all years do not include the large (but
unknown) number of small domestic herds held as pets or for a variety of other
purposes. These might total almost as much as the commercial domestic industry.
There is no detailed information on where domestic goats are held.
4.2.2 Changes in the distribution and density of feral goats in Australia
Feral goats occur over c. 1.2 million km2 (Fig. 2) or 16% of Australia and were
estimated to number at least 2.6 million in 1996 (Parkes et al. 1996a).
11
Most of the published information on changes in feral goat distribution (and density)
is at large scales, often State-wide, and often collected using aerial surveys. As far as
the objectives of this report are concerned, changes at such a scale are useful only to
record the gross symptoms of the problem or the general results of attempts to solve
it. To identify the causes of the problem, there is a need to measure changes in
distribution at the much smaller scale of populations, i.e., changes at the edge of
current feral and domestic goat distributions.
Changes in distributions at State or regional scales
Maps of feral goat distribution and sometimes density at a national or State level have
been published at various times since the 1970s. Most are based on aerial survey
techniques used primarily to count kangaroos (Caughley and Grigg 1981). The
method is limited in its ability to detect changes in the distribution and density of feral
goats. First, density estimates should be corrected for differences in visibility (Bayliss
and Yeomans 1989). Although many earlier surveys were not corrected for
differences in visibility, most surveys appear to use correction factors (e.g., see Pople
et al. 1996). Second, feral goats at low densities are difficult to detect, meaning that
real changes in distribution may go undetected. This problem is likely to be acute at
the low survey intensities employed for feral goats (1.3% coverage; see Pople et al.
Area of feral goat commercial harvest
Feral goat distribution
Dingo Fence
0
900
1800 Kilometers
N
Figure 2. Distribution of feral goats in Australia. Note: This map, supplied by the
Department of the Environment and Heritage, ‘smooths’ distributions where feral
goats exist in patches (e.g., along the eastern parts of Queensland, New South Wales
and Victoria, southern South Australia, southwest Western Australia, and in
Tasmania). See Fig. 3 to show the effect of this when distribution is mapped at a finer
scale. Note: This figure shows feral goats present in eastern Northern Territory, but
our informants suggest none are present.
12
1996). Therefore, some reported increases in range might be an artifact of changing
goat densities rather than real changes in their distribution. Third, the precision of
aerial surveys is low and usually decreases as the density of feral goats declines.
Hence, it is difficult to precisely estimate changes in feral goat abundance.
Despite these caveats, broadscale surveys have shown some changes in goat densities
and distributions over the last few decades (Table 1). Most of these large-scale maps
focus on the extensive distributions of goats in the rangelands. Smaller feral goat
populations are also patchily distributed outside the rangelands (e.g., along the main
eastern dividing range; West and Saunders 2003) (Fig. 3). Patchiness and connectivity
between goat populations within the rangeland and elsewhere are critical parameters
in deciding which populations of pests might be eradicated and which must be
controlled in perpetuity - a point to which we will return.
Changes in distributions at local scales
There is no information (published or otherwise) on the extent of establishment of
new populations of goats, let alone when they are broken down into the four
categories of spread described above. However, we can consider the site-specific
processes that might increase or decrease the risk of spread and establishment of new
herds at local scales.
Figure 3. Distribution map of feral goats in New South Wales. Source: West and
Saunders (2003). Note: a similar map is being compiled for Western Australia
(A. Woolnough, Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, personal
communication).
13
Table 1. Summary of information on the changes in distribution and density of feral
goats in States and Territories.
State/Territory
Western Australia
South Australia
Survey
years/period
1987; 1990
1990–1999
Queensland
Northern
Territory
Trend in
distribution
Stable
Perhaps decreased
References
1999–2002
Increased by 64%
Decreased under
eradication campaign
Increase
1978–1994
Stable
Stable
Pople et al. (1996)
No information
No information
Parkes et al. (1996a);
Anonymous (2002a)
Down in west
Up in east
Stable
Increased
Increased
Decreased to zero on
mainland
Increased
Increased
Decreased to zero
on mainland
Victoria
New South Wales
Trend in density
1992
1996; 2002
1982
1992
1999
1970s–2003
Southwell and Pickles (1993)
A. Woolnough, personal
communication
A. Woolnough, unpublished
data
Southwell et al. (1993); West
and Saunders (2003)
Mitchell et al. (1982)
Southwell et al. (1993);
Thompson et al. (1999)
Letts et al. (1979);
Wurst and Saalfeld (1994);
G. Edwards, personal
communication
Tasmania
1995
Down: under control
? down as new
herds eradicated
Diwell (1995)
ACT
-
Down to near zero
Down
B. Woodruff, personal
communication
4.2.3 Conditions for establishment of new populations of feral goats
Whether domestic goats escape and establish new feral goat populations depends
upon conditions in both the domestic populations and in the potential new range.
Conditions in the domestic populations
Establishment of new populations of feral goats obviously requires goats to arrive in
new range. We propose three categories of risk:
(a) Escape and spread from existing domestic goat herds:
The risks of escape under this category will depend on the extent to which the herd is
managed, which will depend on the purpose for which they are kept. Valuable goats
are more likely to be effectively fenced or recaptured when they escape or stray than
goats with lower value. Nevertheless, some escapes are inevitable even from
intensively managed lands. Bomford (1991) noted that there are many examples of
animals escaping as a result of natural disasters.
There are legal requirements setting fencing standards that reduce this risk in some
States (see section 4.3.2), but the issue becomes how to deal with the inevitable
escapees. We discuss some options for proactive (enforcing fencing standards, and
14
banning goats from critical risk areas) or reactive (surveillance and control of
escapees) management in section 4.7.1.
The purpose for which domestic goats are held is likely to be the main risk factor in
determining contribution to establishment of feral populations, both because of the
degree of management imposed on the animals and the sort of places they are usually
held. Our assessment is that the risks, in increasing order, are:
• Fully domestic animals held for milk production.
• Pets.
• Fully domestic breeds held for meat production.
• Fully domestic breeds held for fibre production.
• Domesticated feral goats harvested for meat production.
• Domesticated feral goats managed for weed control.
There is anecdotal evidence that some domestic breeds of goats (e.g., angoras) have
smaller home ranges and lower dispersal rates than others (e.g., domesticated ferals).
However, we have no data on the actual scale of these risks taken from measurement
of the incidences of escape from the various forms of domestication.
Data on the proportion of goats with ear tags shot in control operations (if collected)
might provide some insight into the prevalence of escapees.
(b) In situ abandonment of domestic goats:
The economics of keeping goats presumably determines the extent of this problem,
although again (apart from anecdotal observations) we have no information yet on the
scale of the problem. Proactive requirements to dispose of unwanted domestic goats
would seem to be the only solution to this category of problem.
(c) Translocation and release:
Setting up new domestic goat farms in areas without goats is not generally constrained
by law, although the deliberate release of goats into the wild is generally illegal.
We have only anecdotal evidence of the latter (e.g., in the Angahook-Lorne State Park
in Victoria). It generally appears to be motivated by the desire to establish a hunting
resource.
Conditions in the potential new range
Three factors are likely to affect the ability of goats to establish a population in new
range.
(a) Habitat suitability:
Recent work has shown that species of exotic mammals introduced into Australia (i.e.,
including feral goats) were more likely to establish a population if they had a larger
area of climatically suitable habitat available (Bomford 2003; Forsyth et al. 2004).
However, climatic suitability is only one component of habitat suitability, with both
biotic and abiotic conditions likely to be important. Goats are hardy animals and can
survive in habitats that extend from the sub-antarctic (e.g., on Auckland Island with
≥300 rain-days per year), to areas with no permanent water (e.g., on many islands
such as Macauley [Kermadec Group] and Isabela [Galapagos Group]), to deserts. In
hot and dry areas, such as the Australian semi-arid rangelands, goats cannot rely on
15
obtaining enough water in their food and need periodic access to drinking water. This
is especially so in droughts and when the ambient temperatures are over c. 30ºC –
they need to drink more than 5 litres per day when temperatures exceed 40°C
(Norbury 1993). Thus, feral goat distributions (and densities) are likely to be limited
by rainfall and/or the lack of drinking water in parts of Australia.
Importantly, because domestic goats are likely to be held in areas where habitat
suitability is high, adjacent new range is likely to be highly suitable for the
establishment of new populations.
(b) Propagule size:
The numbers and sex-age classes of goats that arrive in the potential new range, or
‘propagule size’, has a strong theoretical and empirical basis for determining whether
a population establishes or not (e.g., Komers and Curman 2000). For a sub-sample of
ungulates introduced into New Zealand and Australia for which suitable data were
available (not feral goats), there was a strong and positive relationship between the
number of individuals introduced and introduction success (Forsyth and Duncan
2001; Forsyth et al. 2004). Although populations of ungulates sometimes established
from just a single pair of animals, the probability of establishment increased up to
about six individuals, after which nearly all introductions established populations.
Since goats have similar life-history characteristics to the ungulates considered in
those studies, it is possible that feral goats can establish populations from a pair of
escapees.
(c) Abundance of wild dogs:
Feral goats are now largely absent where dogs are present (e.g., on the
northern/western side of the dog fence; Fig. 2), although goats can persist if they have
suitable refuge habitat where dogs are present but effectively controlled (Parkes et al.
1996a). We predict that new populations of feral goats are less likely to establish
where wild dogs are present, but we do not know of any data with which to test this
hypothesis.
4.2.4 Predicting the future distribution of feral goats
It would be possible to map the distribution of domestic goats (currently unknown)
and feral populations (currently known only at a broad scale; Figs. 2 and 3), and to
predict the risks that either will spread or establish new feral goat populations by
considering the parameters outlined above.
Better information on the distribution of feral goats might become available from
current initiatives from the Natural Resource Management Standing Committee’s
Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group. This requires development of indicators
of how management is reducing regionally significant pests. The data collected will
need to be at a scale that would detect the edges of distributions with some precision
to be useful in the context of this review.
Predicting whether an area would sustain a population of goats should they arrive
could be done by developing a model using the ‘constraints’ noted above: climatic
suitability (assessed using CLIMATE [Pheloung 1996] or other such software),
presence and absence of wild dogs, critical ambient temperatures, and the presence of
16
permanent drinking water. We note that Bomford (2003) developed a protocol for
assessing the risk of exotic vertebrates establishing in Australia. However, her
protocol was developed for species not yet established in the wild in Australia, and we
suspect that other models would be more appropriate for predicting the further spread
of a single species already widely distributed in Australia. Such models have been
developed to predict the spread of weeds (e.g., Weber 2001) in Europe, but they have
not been developed for vertebrate pests in Australia and would require a substantial
research investment to make them useful. However, P. Fleming and S. McLeod (NSW
Agriculture, personal communication) are estimating resource selection functions for
feral goats at one site in New South Wales, and these functions could be used in a
model predicting the dynamics of feral goats. We also note that a model has been
developed for predicting the abundance of introduced brushtail possums (Trichosurus
vulpecula) in New Zealand based on the presence/absence of habitat requirements
(Fraser et al. 2004).
However, given that domestic goats would be held in areas of highly suitable habitat,
and that ungulates can establish populations from very small propagules (see above),
we believe that domestic goats have a very high risk of establishing new populations
in areas where wild dogs are absent.
Predicting the rate at which goats might spread given they establish in a new area is
more difficult, and probably highly site specific. However, dispersal rates of feral
goats, where they have been measured, are low (0.4 km yr-1 in one study in New
Zealand; Parkes 1993) compared with those of other ungulates (e.g., Caughley 1963).
However, this dispersal rate comes from feral goats with small home ranges (<100 ha;
Parkes in press) living in forest or scrub habitats with abundant water. Dispersal rates
are likely to vary according to environmental conditions. Home ranges of feral goats
in Australian rangelands can be very large - up to 588 km2 in one Western Australian
radio-telemetry study where access to water appeared to determine movements (King
1992). However, the rate at which new range has been colonised has not been
estimated.
4.3 Current legal and regulatory instruments to define and manage goats
The Constitution of Australia empowers States to legislate for the management of the
environment and land usage. State governments may devolve some powers down to
local government, and are themselves influenced in the way they exercise their
powers by Commonwealth legislation, particularly through funding and taxation
legislation.
Past reviews of feral goats in Australia have all noted the variable legal status of feral
goats (Parkes et al. 1996a; Environment Australia 1999). Generally, State agriculture
and land management legislation is used to define the status of feral goats with the
aim of encouraging or enforcing people to act in the public good when the goats are
pests (Table 2). State conservation legislation, such as National Parks acts, usually
does not need to discriminate between domestic or feral status of exotic animals, and
tends to be either silent on the particular status of goats, to class them as unprotected
fauna, or to class them with vermin and exotic pests. These laws do not require
managers to control goats in the same way that some ‘agricultural’ acts regulate
17
landholders’ behaviour. However, even when goats are not defined as pests, goat
control is sanctioned either under the Commonwealth TAP process or via the
management plans developed for each park or reserve. A summary of feral goat
control operations conducted for conservation purposes can be extracted from the
database in Reddiex et al. (2004).
Thus, there are usually no legal obstructions against landholders or managers who
want to control goats as pests on land of any tenure, although of course there can be
constraints on how it can be done (e.g., compliance with animal welfare legislation).
However, there are legal incentives for land managers to control goats as agents of
land degradation under the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (section 387(a)). This
provides tax deductions for the costs of fencing or control of pests such as feral goats.
We note that it is unclear whether this incentive could be used to subsidise
commercial harvesting that was not primarily done to achieve some initial population
reduction that was to be followed by ongoing maintenance control, usually from
densities where commercial harvesting is uneconomic (see section 4.6.3).
The problem is not that goats cannot be managed, rather it is that landholders and
managers sometimes have mixed views on their need, obligation, or ability to do so.
Some see the animals as resources and see no need to manage them as pests. Some are
reluctant to spend money on controlling goats as pests where their private costs are
seen to provide a public good. Others might wish to control goats as pests but cannot
afford to do so everywhere; we believe that most public conservation agencies are in
this category.
The legal ability of local governments to manage pests such as goats varies between
States (see Cripps et al. [1999] for a major review of the legislation). Generally, all
local governments have an obligation to set and implement land-use plans and to grant
development approvals, but most of these processes focus on urban land. Many local
governments are also managers of Crown-owned land, much of which can have
significant conservation value that is or can be adversely affected by introduced pests.
In addition, local governments have discretionary powers that enable them to assist
community groups (e.g., Landcare groups) who may wish to manage feral goats.
In summary, the ability of local governments to act against feral goats with legal or
management actions is more constrained than that of State governments or
landholders, as some funding instruments are not available in some States. However,
a survey of 416 local governments (65.2% of the total) in 1999 and 2000 showed 15%
had local bylaws that allowed them to control feral animals (Anonymous 2000a)
(Table 3). The proportion of local governments actually managing pests (such as feral
goats) was not part of the survey questionnaire (J. Pritchard, personal
communication).
18
Table 2. Commonwealth and State/Territory Acts that define the status of goats and
facilitate their management. Note: current proposals to change legislation or policy
are noted in the text below.
Jurisdiction
Agency
Act
Commonwealth
Department of the
Environment and
Heritage
Environment
Protection and
Biodiversity
Conservation
Act 1999
Environment
Protection and
Biodiversity
Conservation
Act 1999
Agriculture and
Related
Resources
Protection Act
1976
Land
Administration
Act 1997
Animal and
Plant Control
Act 1986
National Parks
and Wildlife
Act 1972
Catchment and
Land protection
Act 1994
Department of the
Environment and
Heritage
Western Australia
Agricultural
Protection Board
Pastoral Lands
Board
South Australia
Victoria
Animal and Plant
Control
Commission
Department for
Environment and
Heritage
Department of
Sustainability and
Environment
Department of
Sustainability and
Environment
New South Wales
Parks and Wildlife
Service
Queensland
Department of
Natural Resources
and Mines
Environmental
Protection Agency
Northern Territory
Tasmania
Department of
Primary Industries,
Water and
Environment
Department of
Status of feral goats and where
they are managed
Feral goats listed as a key
threatening process.
Who funds goat
control?
Threat Abatement
components of the
Natural Heritage Trust
Feral goat control included in
some threatened species recovery
plans
Recovery Planning
components of the
Natural Heritage Trust
“Declared pest”
unless fenced and tagged
Landholder
“prohibited stock” unless held
with permit (but see below)
Landholder
“Declared pest”
Landholder
“vermin and exotic animals”
State via National Parks
Goats listed as “established pest”,
all tenures
National Parks
Act 1975
Exotic fauna to be exterminated
in National and State parks
Landholder and
potentially via
Catchment Management
Authorities
Parks Victoria via Parks
Victoria Act 1998
Rural Lands
Protection Act
1998
Game and Feral
Animal Control
Act 2002
National Park
and Wildlife
Act 1974
Land Protection
(Pest and Stock
Route
Management)
Act 1985
Environmental
Protection Act
1994
Territory Parks
and Wildlife
Conservation
Act 2001
National Parks
and Reserves
Management
Act 2002;
Nature
Conservation
Act 2002
Stock Act 1932;
Regional declaration as pesta
Landholder
“Wild” goats deemed as game
Landholder may see
goats as resource?
“unprotected fauna”
Park management plans
“Declared pest”
Landholder
No goats in NT, so no need to
declare as pest
Landholder if declared
Not defined but management
possible under management plans
Unowned goats are feral and may
19
Primary Industries,
Water and
Environment
ACT
a
Animal Health
Act
be controlled with approval of
Chief Veterinary Officer
Land (Planning
and
Environment)
Act
No exotic species declared
as pests
Landholder
There is a capacity to declare feral goats a pest in NSW, but this has not been done
(P. Fleming, NSW Agriculture, personal communication).
Table 3. Number of local governments reporting having by-laws to manage feral
animals (after National Local Government Biodiversity Strategy Implementation
Project Stage 1; www.alga.com.au).
State/Territory
NSW
VIC
QLD
TAS
SA
WA
NT
Number of local
governments
177
78
135
29
67
143
7
Number
responding
131
61
50
27
60
83
5
Number with ability to
manage feral pests
11
14
24
0
9
4
0
4.3.1 Commonwealth legislation
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 is administered
by the Department of the Environment and Heritage and determines that feral goats
are a key threatening process. However, the EPBC Act does not clearly define
whether a goat is feral or domestic. This is left to the Threat Abatement Plan for feral
goats (TAP), which uses the definition of ‘feral’ used by Parkes et al. (1996a) “as
those animals which have escaped the ownership, management and control of people
and are living and reproducing in the wild”. This is a biological definition of feral,
but as we have noted in section 4.1, it can leave the legal status of some goats
uncertain, e.g., where a population might be indistinguishable from biologically feral
animals but is ‘owned’ in the sense that the goats go with the land and are used as, for
example, a harvestable resource.
The process of developing and implementing a TAP requires diagnosis of which
native species and communities are threatened by feral goats, and thus determines
where the goats are to be managed by coincidence of the threatened species/
communities with feral goat populations.
Feral goats are diagnosed as a threat to 18 native species (Table 4). Goats also
adversely affect many less-threatened and common species and more generally
communities and ecosystems (Auld 1993). However, one focus of the terms of
reference of this report was threatened species and communities, and two issues are
(a) whether commercial harvesting of goats occurs (or could occur) in areas with these
threatened species, and (b) if it does occur is it sufficient to remove the threat? Goats
are harvested (or harvestable) only in some parts of their current range (Allen et al.
1995; see Fig. 4). This coincides with some parts of the range of malleefowl (Fig. 4),
20
Table 4. Species known or potentially threatened by feral goats and the likelihood
that the distribution of the threatened species overlaps feral goats that might be
commercially harvested. Source: Schedule 1 of the Endangered Species Protection
Act 1992; see www.deh.gov.au/biodiversity/threatened/tap/goats. 1Environmental
Resources Information Network, Department of the Environment and Heritage.
Threatened species
Current distribution
Malleefowl (Leipoa ocellata)
See Fig. 4
W. thick-billed grasswren
(Amytornis textilis textilis)
Peron Peninsula and
nearby pastoral
stations, WA
Overlap with commercial
harvest of goats?
Partial: central WA,
eastern SA, NSW
Yes; the pastoral stations
commercially harvest feral
goats
References
Kangaroo Island glossy black
cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus
lathami halmaturinus)
Kangaroo Island, SA
None
DEH
Black-footed rock wallaby
(Petrogale lateralis)
See Fig. 4
North-west WA, rocky
habitats but goats may be
harvested in adjacent area
DEH
Brush-tail rock wallaby
(Petrogale penicillata)
See Fig. 4
Most of range, rocky
habitats but may be
adjacent to harvested goats
DEH
Yellow-footed rock wallaby
(Petrogale xanthopus)
See Fig. 4
Most of range, rocky
habitats but may be
adjacent to harvested goats
DEH
Shark Bay mouse (Pseudomys
fieldii)
Some WA islands;
re-established at
Shark Bay
Possible at Shark Bay, but
goat population under
active control
Morris et al. (1992)
Spidery wattle (Acacia araneosa)
Mid-east of SA
Probable
DEH
Grampians pincushion lily (Borya
mirabilis)
Grampians, Victoria.
None
C. Miller, Parks Victoria,
personal communication
Cynanchum elegans
Eastern NSW
Unknown
Anonymous (2002b)
Dragon orchid
(Drakonorchis drakeoides)
14 populations in
WA
Possibly at one population
near Coorow
Holland et al. (1999)
Salt pipewort
(Eriocaulon carsonii)
Artesian mounds in
SA, NSW and Qld
Possible at most sites
Chambers et al. (2002)
Grevillea beadleana
Northern NSW
Unknown
Anonymous (2002c)
Grevillea floripendula
Central Victoria
None
DEH
Grevillea iaspicula
Central NSW
Unknown
DEH
Westringia crassifolia
Western Victoria
None
Diez et al. (1999)
Brachyscome muelleri
Southern SA
None
DEH
Purple copper butterfly
(Paralucia spinifera)
NSW
Probable
DEH
Benshemesh (2000)
1
DEH ; A. Woolnough,
Department of
Agriculture, WA,
unpublished data
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
21
Feral goat distribution
Area of feral goat commercial harvest
Brush-tailed rock-wallaby distribution
Yellow-footed rock-wallaby distribution
Malleefowl distribution
0
900
1800 Kilometers
N
Figure 4. Areas in which feral goats are currently commercially harvested, and the
distribution of two threatened species (a) mallee fowl and (b) rock wallabies for which
feral goats have been defined as a threatening process.
the salt pipewort and the hinged dragon orchid. The three rock wallaby species are
often sympatric with feral goats, but not necessarily in areas where goats are
harvested (e.g., brush-tail rock wallabies) and even where they are (e.g. for yellowfooted rock wallabies, goats are not usually harvested directly from the rocky habitat
the wallabies prefer although they are often captured from adjacent areas (Fig. 4). The
whipstick shrub occurs in areas from which no commercial harvesting of goats occurs.
Recent Commonwealth funding for goat control has been directed at major regional
initiatives such as broad-scale goat control in Western Australia, an integrated pest
and weed control program (Operation Bounceback) in the Flinders Ranges in South
Australia), eradication of isolated populations of feral goats in Tasmania and on offshore islands around Australia, some of which are now funded under the regional
NHT process. Current DEH projects tend to focus on clarifying more generic
problems associated with the management of goats rather than on control per se.
The Threat Abatement Plan for goats has 10 objectives, five of which (and
particularly the last two) are directly served by the terms of reference for this report:
1. Promote the recovery of species and ecological communities that are
endangered or vulnerable due to competition by feral goats.
2. Arrest land degradation caused by feral goats and promote recovery of
degraded areas to a condition that maximises the chances of long-term
22
survival of endangered and vulnerable native species and ecological
communities affected by such degradation.
3. Eradicate goats from islands or isolated areas where they are a threat to
endangered or vulnerable native species or ecological communities.
4. Prevent feral goats occupying new areas in Australia where they may
threaten species or ecological communities with extinction.
5. Ensure that development of a commercial goat industry does not
compromise conservation of native species or ecological communities.
The latter three objectives are relevant to managing new populations, and depending
on the actions that might flow from them, might be seen as reactive (in 3 and 4) and
proactive (in 4 and 5).
4.3.2 State and Territory legislation
Western Australian legislation
Three Western Australian Acts impinge on the legal status and management of goats;
the Agriculture and Related Resources Protection Act 1976 and its declared animal
regulations administered by the Agricultural Protection Board, the Land
Administration Act 1997 administered by the Pastoral Lands Board, and the Soil and
Land Conservation Act 1945 administered by the Soil and Land Conservation
Council. The aims of the last Act are delivered in practice by the conditions set out in
the first two Acts.
All feral goats are declared pests of agriculture under the Agricultural and Related
Resources Protection Act 1976. Domestic goats in the agricultural zone of the State
(Fig. 2) must be held behind effective fences and carry individual identification, and
are subject to regulations common to all livestock (Gray and Massam 2001).
Establishment of new domestic herds from feral goats (usually caught in the pastoral
zone) is subject to Agricultural Protection Board ‘keeping requirements’ (Gray and
Massam 2001). Basically, if the feral animals have been domesticated on pastoral
properties approved by the Pastoral Lands Board (re-domestication is defined as being
marked and trained to respect fences) they can be moved to the agricultural zone with
appropriate waybills (Livestock Identification and Movement: Sheep and Goats
Agdex 400/28). If feral goats do not meet these requirements, anyone wishing to hold
them in the agricultural areas must obtain a permit. This requires identification of
where they are to be held, possible site inspection by an officer of the Department,
approved fencing standards, reporting of any escapees, conditions on re-sale and
disposal, and with more stringent rules for a few areas in the east of the agricultural
zone (Gray and Massam 2001). Generally, once the Department is satisfied that the
process of re-domestication has been completed, keeping permits need not be
renewed. Feral goats not held under permit or not meeting these rules are supposed to
be controlled by the landholder or leaseholder. Little or no commercial harvesting of
feral goats occurs in the agricultural areas of the State.
Most goats in Western Australia live in the pastoral lease rangeland (Fig. 3), which is
mostly administered by the Pastoral Lands Board. Here, all feral goats were classed as
‘prohibited stock’ unless held under a permit. A permit required that the goats had to
be earmarked or tagged, held behind fences of approved standards, and at approved
23
stocking rates – all to be reviewed annually. However, most pastoral leases with
goats do not have permits, but many nevertheless harvest them as a commercial
resource, which left their obligation to control feral goats as pests or prohibited stock
somewhat vague.
During the 1990s, Land Conservation District Committees supported by the
Agriculture Protection Board and the Department of Agriculture coordinated a largescale feral goat control campaign with the aim of eradicating feral goats. Commercial
harvesting was seen as the first step in reducing population densities to levels that
could then be removed by other control methods (Pickles 1992). Millions of goats
were removed, but the commercialisation tool proved to be the Achilles heel of the
campaign as the price for feral goats increased in the late 1990s encouraging
landholders to sustain harvests rather than continue the attempt at eradication – the
latter of dubious feasibility in any event!
The failure of the eradication campaign, the inability to enforce the permit
requirements of the Land Administration Act, and the high price of feral goats has led
to a reconsideration of the best way to manage goats in the pastoral lease rangelands.
The State is attempting to clearly distinguish between managed domestic goats as
livestock and the control of feral goats as pests. In essence, it is proposed to amend
the law to change goats from an ‘authorised’ or ‘prohibited’ set of definitions and
practices to a ‘managed’ or ‘unmanaged’ set of definitions and practices in
amendments to the Land Administration Act. Managed goats will have to be held
under a property management plan that includes rangeland condition monitoring (the
Department of Agriculture monitors about 1600 sites in the WA rangelands at 3 or 6
yr intervals; Department for Planning and Infrastructure 2003a,b), stocking rate
management during droughts, husbandry such as fencing and management of herd
structure, TGM (Total Grazing Management) capture yards, and provision of animal
welfare. There is debate about the need for individual identification of the animals.
Breaches of these conditions can lead to fines, suspension of the lease, treatment
notices to remove excess goats at a cost to the leaseholder. It is proposed to ban goat
enterprises from the Pilbara and Kimberley regions.
Aerial surveys to estimate goat densities were done on all pastoral leases likely to
have feral goats between 1997 and 2002, but results had no effect on any control
enforcement and this monitoring program ceased. Although ‘feral animals’ are seen as
one of several factors contributing to changes in rangeland condition (Department for
Planning and Infrastructure 2003b), it remains to be seen whether any declines in
range condition (based on the long-term monitoring sites) will lead to enforcement of
current feral goat legislation.
There is uncertainty about whether the tenure-specific Land Administration Act takes
precedence over the non-specific Agricultural and Related Resources Protection Act
in the pastoral lease lands in Western Australia. If goats in the pastoral lease land
were changed to authorised stock (which would enforce their management as part of
the lease conditions) their declaration under the latter Act would have to be revoked.
Conservation land in the State is administered by the Department of Conservation and
Land Management (CALM) under the Conservation and Land Management Act 1984
and the Wildlife Conservation Act 1950. Goats are not specifically defined in either
24
act, although only indigenous fauna are protected under the latter act. Goats as pests
are dealt with under management plans for each park.
About 23 million ha of Western Australia is under various protected tenures
administered by CALM. Importantly for this report, CALM has purchased 25
pastoral leases (4.3 million ha) and part of 18 others of the 496 leases in the
rangelands in the State (Dalton and Bright 2003), i.e., where commercial harvesting of
goats is common. Destocking and closure of artificial water sources to reduce
herbivory by domestic, feral and native animals (kangaroos) is one management
action being implemented on these new conservation reserves. A consequence of this
is that commercial harvesting of feral goats declines as both goats and trappable water
points decline – good for the range and biodiversity (e.g., Landsberg et al. 1997) but
not for the sustainability of the goat harvesting industry on these properties.
South Australian legislation
Feral goats are ‘declared’ animals under the Animal and Plant Control (Agricultural
Protection and Other Purposes) Act 1986 administered by the Animal and Plant
Control Commission. Vertebrate pest control is the responsibility of the landowner.
The role of the Animal and Plant Control Commission and of the local Animal and
Plant Control Boards is to ensure the requirements of the Act are fulfilled, to provide
advice, and, in the case of non-compliance, to undertake control at the landholder’s
expense.
Domestic and feral goats are distinguished in the Animal and Plant Control Act.
Domestic goats must be owned, permanently marked and confined within goat-proof
fences. A permit is required to recapture feral goats that are brought back into such a
domestic state. Thus, by implication any unmarked goat is a feral animal, and any
marked animal not held by effective fencing is a feral animal. The Commission has
also been aiming to eradicate feral goats from areas such as the Flinders Ranges
(R. Henzell, Animal and Plant Pest Control Commission, personal communication).
To support this aim, all new domestic goat herds were banned in the area (and most
islands off the South Australian coast), and any existing herds had to be held under
permit with identification and fencing requirements.
The Commission produced a policy relating to feral goats to support these laws and
regulations (Anonymous 1998). It also banned the release of captured feral goats
(e.g., small, non-commercial animals had to be slaughtered at capture rather than
released), placed an obligation on owners to recover escaped domestic goats, and set
rules for holding captured feral goats before they were sent to the abattoirs.
Public comment on the policy has led to some changes, particularly in relation to the
‘banned’ area rules. A risk assessment model has been produced to balance the
potential benefits of domestic goat farming against the risks they pose if they should
escape. When the risk assessment procedure is implemented, the prohibition zone in
the Flinders Ranges will be abolished, and goats will be able to be kept in any part of
South Australia provided the risk assessment criteria are passed, subject to other
statutory requirements. Properties that include major waterways or areas of rugged or
densely vegetated terrain will probably have to fence these off from the goats in order
to pass risk assessment. In practice, landowners with properties in very rugged parts
of the Flinders and Mt. Lofty Ranges will find it very difficult to meet the criteria
25
(R. Henzell, Animal and Plant Pest Control Commission, personal communication).
On land held under pastoral lease in the northern Pastoral Zone (Pastoral Land
Management and Conservation Act 1989) the Pastoral Board has to approve any goat
farming enterprise under its ‘changed land use’ process before any risk assessment
will be considered.
Permits will not be required to farm goats in areas (a) safely distant from various
protected tenures such as National Parks, (b) not in an area of concern, (c) when the
type of goat held presents minimal risks, and (d) and the goats are identifiable.
The Department for Environment and Heritage administers the National Parks and
Wildlife Act 1972 that obliges managers to control ‘vermin and exotic animals’ as
part of its management objectives. About 22 million ha of South Australia is under
various protected tenures (Department for Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal
Affairs 1998). However, the proportion of this protected land inhabited by feral goats
is unknown.
Victorian legislation
The main Act concerning the management of feral goats is the Catchment and Land
Protection Act 1994 administered by the Department of Sustainability and
Environment. Feral goats are defined as ‘established pest animals’ in that Act, and
they could be listed (but currently are not) as a threatening process under the Flora
and Fauna Guarantee Act 2000.
The State has 10 Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) that are responsible for
a wide range of natural resource management that can include weed and pest control.
The Act requires land managers (both public and private) to manage pest animals,
such as goats, on their land. An Authority may enforce control or eradication via a
‘land management notice’, and may seek penalties of up to $6000 against people who
keep, sell or release ‘established pests’ – which, we note, may potentially impose
constraints on feral goat harvesting if enforced!
The CMAs do not have a substantial in-house pest control ‘delivery’ function (c.f.,
Rural Land Protection Boards in NSW) but can coordinate pest control by community
groups such as Landcare groups.
The National Parks Act 1975 and the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act 2000 also affect
goat control in Victoria. The National Parks Act requires exotic fauna (except some
deer species) to be exterminated from National and State Parks. Management of
reserved land in Victoria is carried out by a stand-alone service delivery agency, Parks
Victoria, which may provide actions such as pest control to any landowner. Parks
Victoria has ‘management services agreement with the Department of Sustainability
and Environment for management on State lands’.
New South Wales legislation
The Rural Lands Protection Act 1998 set up Rural Lands Protection Boards that can
levy rates and set stocking rates on private and pastoral lease lands in New South
Wales. Part 11 of this act allows animals to be declared as pests and thus impose
obligations on landholders to control them. Feral goats are not so listed, but Boards
may control them at the request of any landholder.
26
The Game and Feral Animal Control Act 2002 lists goats in the wild as ‘game’ under
section 5(2). Animals in this section may be hunted without a game licence on private
land, or by officers of Rural Lands Protection Boards or local governments on any
lands while performing their duties. The Act does not apply to most public lands held
under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. Elsewhere and under other than the
circumstances excepted above, goat hunters would require a licence to shoot them.
The National Park and Wildlife Act 1974 lists goats (as Artiodactyla) in a schedule of
unprotected fauna, but is otherwise silent on their management. Control campaigns in
conservation lands are done under each park’s management plan.
Queensland legislation
Feral goats are declared as Class 2 pests under the Land Protection (Pest and Stock
Route Management) Act 2002. This recognises their adverse affects on production
and environmental values and obliges landholders to take reasonable steps to control
them. Control delivery on private lands is via local government instruments, the
Rural Lands Protection Boards. The Stock Identification Regulation 1985 requires all
holdings of more than 11 farmed goats to be registered and the animals tagged.
The Parks and Wildlife Service of the Environmental Protection Agency manages
protected areas in the State and has an obligation under the Environmental protection
Act 1994 and the Nature Conservation Act 1992 to manage introduced pests such as
goats.
The State has developed a draft pest animal strategy (Anonymous 2000b) that in part
suggests how the various stakeholders in pest control might better coordinate pest
control. The primary act is currently being reviewed, in part to clarify the status of
feral versus domestic goats.
Northern Territory legislation
The Territory Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act 2001 allows any feral animal to be
declared a pest and controlled in nominated areas. There are currently no feral goat
herds (Letts et al. 1979) and few (if any) domestic herds (G. Edwards, personal
communication; c.f. Fig. 2) on the mainland in the Northern Territory and it is illegal
to liberate them into the wild. The absence of feral goats is thought to be due to the
presence of dingoes.
The Act sets some rules to determine whether a species might be declared a pest. A
goat population would have to spread and establish and be not easily controlled before
it could be declared, and these rules might distinguish a domestic herd from a feral
one.
Tasmanian legislation
Goats are not defined under Tasmanian law except as a feral animal under the Animal
Health Act 1995 where they may be controlled as an animal disease risk under the
discretion of the Chief Veterinary Officer.
27
The National Parks and Wildlife Act is silent on the status of goats. However, this
has not stopped the Parks and Wildlife Service from eradicating many of the feral
goat populations that established after an enthusiasm for goat farming in the 1980s.
ACT legislation
The Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991 allows for animals such as feral
goats to be declared as pests, although none have yet been. A new plant and animal
pest act is in preparation. Landholders and managers are able to control non-native
animals.
The Nature Conservation Act 1980 also allows pest organisms to be prohibited or
controlled to protect native biota.
Goats were largely removed from the ACT during the early 1990s, and the 2003 bush
fires accounted for most of the rest. There are no goat farms in the ACT
(B. Woodruff, ACT Parks and Conservation Service, personal communication). Thus,
there seems little justification to declare goats as pests.
4.3.3 Local Government legislation
State Governments may devolve some land management responsibilities to Local
Governments that may manage such things as feral animals by a variety of planning
and regulatory instruments such as local laws, and planning schemes and policies
within the State legislative framework (Berwick and Thorman 2000). The ability of
Local Governments to actually do this varies considerably between States (Cripps et
al. 1999; and see above under the State summaries), and the amount actually done is
unknown. We suspect that most local authorities in rural areas leave feral animal
control to the appropriate agency (Rural Lands Protection Boards or their
equivalents).
4.4 Commercial harvesting of feral goats
4.4.1 History and structure of the feral goat harvest industry
Feral goats have been harvested for four main uses: domesticated to establish farmed
breeding stock, as meat for either export or local consumption (now all processed
through abattoirs but, in the past, with some shot in the field and exported as game
meat), and export as live animals for slaughter at destination (Fig. 5).
Harvesting methods
Commercial harvesters use two main methods to capture feral goats: trapping at
watering points using one-way spear gates or jump-down entrances (e.g., McRae
1984; Diver 1991; Sullivan 1992; Bellchambers 2004) and mustering (Parkes et al.
1996a). In NSW, landholders were surveyed about goat control methods they used in
2002. In the western rangelands, 61% mustered goats and 29% trapped on water – the
rest used aerial or ground shooting or other control methods. However, in the eastern
parts of the State, most harvesting was by mustering (West and Saunders 2003). In
the pastoral zone of Western Australia, most goats are captured by trapping at water
(G. Pickles, Department of Agriculture, Western Australia, personal communication).
28
Farmed goats
Feral goats
Live goat
exporters
Slaughtered overseas
Abattoirs
(often acting
as own
marketer)
Export meat
Domestic meat (retail,
restaurant, smallgoods
and pet food)
Figure 5. Structure of the goat harvesting and processing industry in Australia (after
Holst 1990).
Domestication as breeding stock for fibre or meat production
Domesticated feral goats formed the basis of the Australian domestic goat industry.
For example, Restall (1982) found that 72% of feral does in western New South
Wales had commercially recoverable fibre, and Johnson (1985) claimed that 30% of
feral goats in parts of Western Australia could produce commercial quantities of
cashmere. The process of domestication has been to cross pure-bred angora bucks
with selected feral does and with the progeny for five generations to result in a nearpure angora (Ramsay 1994). Some farmers are now mustering and constraining feral
does and crossing with pure-bred Boer bucks to produce offspring with better carcass
characteristics (D.M. Forsyth and J.P. Parkes, personal observation).
Re-domestication as weed controllers
Goats can be effective at controlling exotic weeds such as blackberry (Rubus
fruticosa), St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum), sweet brier (Rosa rubiginosa),
and native woody weeds - where pasture rather than woody vegetation is the aim such as hopbush (Dodonaea spp.), Acacia spp. Eremophila spp. (Wilson et al. 1975;
Vere and Holst 1979, Davies 1982; Peirce 1991; Allan et al. 1993; Parkes et al. 1996a
and references therein). Generally, the goats have to be run at high densities (that are
likely to vary with the effects of rainfall) before they effectively suppress the weeds
and their regeneration, but not so high that they damage pasture and compete with
sheep.
Attempts to identify optimal densities of goats (and sheep) have proved difficult (e.g.,
Markwick et al. 1992; Cobon et al. 1992) but are tractable. The questions requiring
answers are:
29
•
•
What density of goats is required to effectively control the weeds,
and how does this change as weed densities decline and as total
vegetation biomass and structure changes due to rainfall?
What are the consequent changes in desirable vegetation (for both
production purposes and for improved biodiversity) from the
reduction in weeds (positive and negative) and the changing
densities of goats and sheep (positive and negative)?
Captured and exported alive
Goats were first exported live, to the Middle East, in 1982/83. Most such goats are
destined for slaughter although a few are used for breeding (Ramsay 1994). Some
goats have been exported by air, generally up to 500 at a time (e.g., c. 11% of the total
of all goats [feral and domestic] in 2002) but currently most are shipped by sea.
More than 1 million goats have been exported live since 1982 (Fig. 6). Since 1990,
more than 880 000 goats have been exported live, but the number exported annually
has varied between less than 14 000 (in 1995) and 136 000 (in 2002; Table 5).
Destinations have also changed. The United Arab Emirates was the primary importer
of live goats until the early 1990s, and Saudi Arabia was an important destination
until August 2003, after which all live animal exports were suspended to that country
as a consequence of problems with sheep exports. Malaysia has been a growing
market in recent years (Fig. 6). Some of these changes are due to competition from
other exporting countries such as India, Pakistan, Syria, and Turkey (Hughes 1987),
although Australia remains the largest supplier to the above markets
(www.livecorp.com.au/Statistics_Goats_Dest.asp, 23 July 2003).
The characteristics of goats desired for slaughter by the various importing countries
varies, but can be broadly defined as follows (http://www.mla.com.au, 16 July 2003).
Saudi Arabia demands male goats (no females permitted) of all breeds (but with a
preference for Boer or Boer cross) that weigh ≥25 kg. The goats must not be older
than six-tooth and must be farmed/domesticated (i.e., born behind wire and raised in
captivity since birth). Other Middle East countries accept male and female goats of all
breeds and ≥25 kg, but prefer young goats. Malaysia accepts male and female goats of
all breeds, but they must be ≥40 kg. The live goat market in the Middle East fluctuates
as Australian exporters compete with those from India and Iran; prices in this market
are more influenced by the quantity of stock in the market, not only of goats but also
of Australian sheep (Coffey MPW Pty Ltd 1994).
Western Australia has dominated the live export market since 1990, although many
were exported from Victoria (Portland) in 1990/91 and from South Australia in 1992
and again in 2001, 2002 and 2003 (Table 5). Apart from 1999, few goats have been
exported live from either Queensland or New South Wales in recent years.
30
Figure 6. Destinations of live goats exported from Australia, 1989/90–2001/02. Data
were provided by P. Stinson, Livecorp. Note that for clarity the small amounts that
went to ‘other countries’ are not shown (see text).
Table 5. The number of live goats exported by State, 1990–2003. Data from
Livecorp, www.livecorp.com.au/Statistics_Goats.asp, 12 February 2004.
State
NSW
NT
QLD
SA
Tas
Vic
WA
Total
1990
11529
680
6018
2784
48
53515
14337
88911
1991
11758
1825
3973
2154
0
5860
48212
73782
1992
9515
273
644
41149
4
5723
17685
74993
1993
5743
689
722
1383
585
1354
14793
25269
1994
3614
92
450
960
0
1450
21653
28219
1995
945
150
3
303
0
1377
10998
13776
Year
1996
5825
100
1286
613
0
4297
22562
35093
1997
8241
100
410
6081
0
3617
35385
53834
1998
513
748
957
650
0
3544
52813
59225
1999
15099
4771
15012
1258
0
1021
28989
66150
2000
14
1587
5620
3224
0
2757
38099
51301
2001
1037
2865
1177
22687
0
8889
69326
106019
2002
4727
6089
8741
16416
0
45191
54961
136125
2003
7251
9497
1018
17576
0
5642
29749
70733
31
Apart from constraints of consistent supply and quality of supply, expansion of the
live goat export trade is governed by the Australian Meat and Livestock Industry Act
1997. That Act gave rise to the Australian Meat and Livestock Industry (Export
Licensing) Regulations 1998 and the Australian Meat and Livestock Industry Orders;
these contain specific regulations for exporting goats.
There has recently been concern about the high rates of mortality on voyages. For the
140 live goat export voyages between September 2000 and October 2002, the average
mortality rate was 1.41%. However, 23 ships exceeded the trigger level of 2%, with
10 exceeding 4% (More and Brightling 2003). It was recommended that “from 1
January 2005, captured feral goats are not selected for export live, regardless of
voyage duration” (More and Brightling 2003). It was acknowledged that “on-farm
investment and management change is needed to meet the proposed live goat export
requirements” for presently feral goats from Western Australia.
Slaughtered at abattoirs in Australia and exported
(a) Number of goats:
Australia began exporting goat meat in 1952 (SCARM 1982), and is now the world’s
largest supplier of chilled and frozen goat meat (Ramsay 1994; Meat & Livestock
Australia 2000). According to FAO statistics summarised by Meat & Livestock
Australia (2000), Australia exported 7959 tonnes of goat meat in 1998, c. 47% of total
global exports; France shipped 2255 tonnes and New Zealand 1477 tonnes.
Ramsay (1994) claimed that most goats slaughtered for export were/are of feral
origin, but that animals from domestic herds are also slaughtered. Cribb (1991)
provided figures suggesting that the domestic goat industry is primarily concerned
with fibre production but pointed out that many domestic goats are slaughtered
because they have poor fibre-producing characteristics rather than for their meat
characteristics. In 1994, 75% of goat meat was estimated to be sourced from feral
animals, and 25% from culls from fibre and dairy herds (Pender et al. 1994; AgriFocus Pty Ltd undated a). It is likely that the proportion of feral goats in the current
totals exported has increased in recent years (see below).
The quantity of goat meat exported steadily increased in the 1980s from 4513 tonnes
in 1981/82 to between 8000–15 000 tonnes yr-1 since 1990/91 (Fig. 7). The amount
exported before 1981/82 and the numbers these tonnages represent before 1998 are
unknown. Nearly all of Australia’s goat meat is exported frozen, with about 85% as
whole carcasses (Holst 1990).
Between c. 500 000 and 1 100 000 goat carcasses (feral and domestic combined) were
inspected annually by Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS)
veterinarians at abattoirs since 1998 (Table 6). Some explanation of this table and
caveats on data reliability are required to allow us to make an estimate of the number
of feral goats removed from the wild each year (Table 7):
• The State tallies do not always represent where the goats were harvested.
For example, most of those inspected in Victoria (mostly at Mildura)
would have been harvested in South Australia and New South Wales.
• The totals include both feral and domestic goats. As noted above, we think
it likely that most are feral animals, but have given two estimates assuming
70% and 90% ferals.
32
•
•
The number inspected is less than the number of feral goats caught
because of mortality at capture and during transport to the works, and
because some non-marketable animals (see below) are rejected before
inspection.
The AQIS tallies before 2001 for Western Australia were substantially
lower than those collated by the Western Australian Department of
Agriculture. This difference coincides with the change from paper to
electronic reporting of establishment kill statistics.
Bearing these caveats in mind, we estimate that c. 1 million feral goats were removed
by commercial harvesting in 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Figure 7. Total tonnes of goat meat exported from Australia, 1981/82–2001/02. Data
for 1981/82–1988/89 were from Ramsay (1994); data for 1989/90–2002/03 were
provided by P. Dumaresq, Meat & Livestock Australia.
Table 6. Number of goat carcasses inspected by AQIS veterinarians at abattoirs in
Australia, 1998–2003. (Data provided by P.H. Smith, AQIS, Canberra).
State/Territory
NSW
QLD
SA
VIC
TAS
WA
Total
1998
97521
318002
35967
67201
0
6378
518691
1999
24951
228599
57624
122177
0
44702
478053
Year
2000
2001
28317
49974
157587
258424
32321
52735
189812
271529
0
0
116516
276833
524553
909495
2002
135504
368340
56049
256765
0
327997
1144655
2003
166932
456962
30614
225902
0
226649
1107059
33
Table 7. Estimated number of feral goats commercially harvested in Australia during
the 1998–2003 calendar years. We assume either 70% or 90% of the animals exported
live and slaughtered at abattoirs are feral, and that an additional 5% of the goats
processed were harvested and either died or were killed before processing.
Year
Live
export
Abattoirs
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
Total
61404
64431
45639
154061
93653
70913
490101
518691
478053
524553
909495
1144655
1107059
4682506
Live
export
(70%)
42983
45102
31947
107843
65557
49639
343071
Abattoirs
(70%)
363084
334637
367187
636647
801259
774941
3277755
Total
(70%)
426370
398725
419091
781714
910156
865809
3801866
Live
export
(90%)
55264
57988
41075
138655
84288
63821
441091
Abattoirs
(90%)
466822
430248
472098
818546
1030190
996353
4214257
(b) Seasonality of supply:
Two general patterns of seasonal supply are apparent in Australia (Fig. 8). In Western
Australia, most goats are supplied to the abattoirs from late October to late March,
when natural water sources in the rangelands are most scarce and the animals are
easiest to trap at artificial water (see below). For example, the Geraldton Meat
Exports (‘GME’) abattoir is “inundated” with feral goats during November–February,
but during the other months there is virtually no supply. GME would prefer a
constant supply of goats throughout the year up to their daily capacity of 2000
animals to optimise their processing plant and retain skilled staff (D. Clements, GME,
personal communication).
In contrast, the supply in the eastern states is more evenly spread throughout the year
(Fig. 8). This is because there are two rainfall patterns that alter the vulnerability of
feral goats to harvesting. Goats in the east of New South Wales and Queensland are
harvested entirely by mustering; trapping at waterpoints is not possible because
temperatures are not high enough that goats need to drink water, instead consuming
enough from forage (P. Fleming, NSW Agriculture, personal communication).
Mustering is possible at any time of the year and hence farmers can respond more
easily to changes in prices for goats by abattoirs. In the drier western rangelands of
New South Wales and Queensland many goats are also harvested by trapping at
waterpoints during the dry season – about September to January in NSW and June to
October in Queensland.
(c) Number and location of abattoirs:
There were 25 and 33 export licensed abattoirs that processed goat meat, and 51 and
68 licensed exporters of that meat in 1991 and 1992, respectively (Elliott and
Woodford 1995). In January 2004 there were 20 abattoirs export licensed to process
goat meat (Fig. 9). However, only 14 of those 20 abattoirs actually process goat meat;
six in Western Australia, four in Queensland, three in New South Wales, and one in
Victoria (P.H. Smith, AQIS, personal communication). For privacy reasons the
number of goats processed by each abattoir could not be obtained, but the main
abattoirs are at Geraldton (Western Australia) and Charleville (Queensland).
Total
(90%)
548189
512647
538831
1005060
1170201
1113184
4888112
34
Figure 8. Seasonal supply of goats to abattoirs in four States in 2003. Source: P.H.
Smith, AQIS, personal communication.
(d) Destination of exported goat meat:
The quantity of goat meat exported from Australia has increased substantially from
1981/82 to 1992/93 (Fig. 10). Since 1992/93 the quantity exported has been relatively
stable, except for a c. 20% decline during 1996/97 to 1999/00. The relative stability of
the export meat trade since 1991/92 contrasts with the live goat export trade (Fig. 6).
The 1980s were characterised by both growth and diversification of markets for
exported goat meat, with decreasing quantities exported to Singapore, but increasing
quantities to Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Republic of Korea, and particularly to USA and
Taiwan (Ramsay 1994). Thirty-three countries imported goat meat from Australia in
1991/92 (Ramsay 1994). Since 1989/90, four destinations have imported most of
Australia’s goat meat (Fig. 8); Taiwan, Caribbean, Canada, and the United States.
South Korea and Singapore have all but dropped out as importers of goat meat since
1995/96. Since 1996/97 the United States market has increased substantially such that
it now receives almost 40% of goat meat exports, and the market is likely to continue
to grow (K. Holzner, Meat & Livestock Australia, personal communication).
35
#
Location of abattoirs
Feral goat distribution
#
Rockhampton #
Carnarvon
Charleville
#
#
Gin Gin #
#
Cherbourg
Geraldton
Broken Hill
Narrogin
#
Margret River
0
##
# Katanning
Port Pirie #
Beaufort River
#
Waikerie
Scone
Mudgee#
#
#
Pyramid Hill
# Wodonga
Wycheproof# #
#
#
Myrtleford
Ararat
1000
2000 Kilometers
N
Figure 9. Locations of the 20 abattoirs licensed to process goat meat in January 2004.
Note that only 15 of these abattoirs currently process goat meat. Source: P.H. Smith,
AQIS, personal communication.
We note that the demands of the different countries vary (Ramsay 1994). Caribbean
countries prefer frozen and boneless meat from carcasses weighing >16 kg. In
Taiwan, there is little demand for carcasses during February–August, with demand
increasing during the festival season; premiums are paid for lean skin-on carcasses
weighing 14–20 kg. Middle East buyers preferred 8–12 kg carcasses, with halal
slaughter essential.
The major market for Western Australian goat meat is Taiwan (Coffey MPW Pty Ltd
1994). About 1800 tonnes of goat meat were exported from that State to Taiwan in
1992, but only 1300 tonnes in 1995/96. Taiwan prefers feral goat meat and Western
Australia was apparently unable to supply adequate quantities of goat meat to that
market. The Taiwanese market is the highest priced Asian market due to the demand
for skin-on product that is widely consumed in a traditional soup dish eaten during the
winter months; goats for this market must be lean and young (ca. 14–16 kg). Malaysia
is also an important market for Western Australian goat meat. There is a preference
for the skin-off product, but that market substitutes goat with mutton and ram
carcasses when the price relativities change. Similarly, the Singapore market is pricesensitive and willing to substitute goat for other types of meat (Coffey MPW Pty Ltd
1994).
36
Figure 10. Destinations of goat meat exported from Australia, 1989/90–2002/03. Data
were provided by P. Dumaresq (Meat & Livestock Australia). Note that for clarity the
small amounts that went to ‘other countries’ are not shown.
(e) Economics of supply
It appears that most decisions to harvest feral goats (either by doing it themselves or
by contracting the work) are made at a property level by the landholder (e.g.,
Thompson and Boyd-Law 1995). Thus, the attitudes of the individual landholder
towards feral goats are a key variable in the industry. Some landholders see feral goats
as competitors with livestock and essentially subsidise their control (or even profit)
from sale of the animals. Others see the goats as a resource, either directly as a
product for meat, or indirectly as a means of controlling weeds with a harvest of
excess animals as a by-product. Some appear never to harvest feral goats when it
would clearly be profitable (i.e., they do not see goats as part of their economic
enterprise).
It might be important to know what motivates landholders to commercially harvest
goats if governments wanted to influence their behaviour. One way to explore these
attitudes would be by surveying a large sample of individuals. To our knowledge, this
has not been done. A second way to explore motivations is to quantify the
relationships between measurable outcomes of landholders’ behaviour (e.g., the
numbers of feral goats harvested) with variables that might be thought to influence
them.
Harvesting theory suggests that profit will be the primary determinant of whether or
not to harvest (e.g., Choquenot et al. 1998). For feral goats, profitability will depend
37
on the difference between the cost of harvesting the goats and the price paid for the
goats (see below). Parkes et al. (1996b) showed that 89% of the variation in the
annual commercial harvest of red deer (Cervus elaphus) in New Zealand was
explained by price per kg offered by the game buyers. Nevertheless, factors other
than price may affect the commercial harvest of goats. First, the efficiency of capture
will vary with the methods used or possible and profitability will increase as the
number of goats that can be harvested per unit effort increases (sensu Choquenot et al.
1998). Second, managers will be more likely to harvest feral goats when they
perceive competition with their livestock (domestic sheep), and/or when rangeland
condition is perceived to be poor (A. Dowden, Challa Station, personal
communication). Third, farmers may wish not to harvest feral goats when they think
there are net benefits in retaining them as weed controllers.
We used data collected by G. Pickles and A. Woolnough (Department of Agriculture,
Western Australia) to test hypotheses about factors influencing the number of goats
received by abattoirs in Western Australia. The data consisted of 180 consecutive
monthly records (July 1988 to June 2003, inclusive) for four variables (Fig. 11):
• The number of goats received by abattoirs Western Australia.
• The average price paid per goat by the abattoirs (adjusted for inflation to
1988 $ using the Consumer Price Index [CPI]).
• The average rainfall for the region that the goats were harvested in (mm).
• The average price paid per kg of 21 micron wool, the predominant wool
grown in the region that the goats were harvested in (adjusted for inflation
to 1988 $ using the CPI).
Although some domestic goats may be included in these totals, the overwhelming
majority of goats were commercially harvested from rangeland pastoral leases and
were thus, to all intents and purposes, feral or ‘unmanaged’.
From conversations with key players in the Western Australian goat harvesting
industry, and from the literature, we generated four hypotheses for testing:
• That the number of goats harvested was a function of the average price paid per
goat.
• That there was a threshold average price paid per goat below which farmers did
not harvest goats.
• That the number of goats received declined when the wool price increased
because it was more profitable for farmers to spend time on wool production
activities.
• That the number of goats received was a function of monthly rainfall; this was
based on the notion that goats were easier to trap in the drier months when they
were forced to drink from a small number of available artificial water sources.
38
Figure 11. The data used in our analyses. All data were compiled on a monthly basis
for July 1988–June 2003, inclusive. (a) Number of goats received by abattoirs in
Western Australia. (b) The average price ($) paid per goat by the abattoirs (adjusted
for CPI). (c) The mean rainfall (mm) for the area the goats were harvested from. (d)
The auction value of 21 micron wool (adjusted for CPI).
39
The data show a slight increasing trend in the number of goats received over the
period considered, with larger numbers received in recent years compared to earlier
years (Fig. 11a). There also appears to be a strong seasonal effect (Fig. 12),
characterised by more goats being received in the warmer months and less in the
colder months. The ten largest observations occurred in the months of November,
December and January while the five smallest observations occurred in the winter
months of June and July. The distribution of the number of goats received was skewed
to the right; about 50% of the observations in the data set were between c. 6 800 and
21 500, but there were extreme high values (up to 60 400). No goats were received in
June 1991 and June 1996. In order to satisfy the assumption that the underlying
distribution was normal, a transformation of the response variable was required. The
most appropriate transformation was found to be the square root of the number of
goats received. The boxplots (Fig. 12) show that the variation in the number of goats
received by the abattoir is also considerably larger in the summer months relative to
the winter months where numbers remain more stable throughout the observation
period.
The average price paid per goat was relatively stable during the period August 1990 to
December 1993 (Fig. 11b). From January 1994 until August 2003, the price increased.
Prices during this latter period also showed a seasonal effect, with higher prices paid
in the months at the end of the calendar year. An exception to this occurred in 1999,
when the annual maximum price was recorded in August before steadily decreasing
for the rest of the year.
The rainfall data were the averaged rainfall across the five rainfall districts from
which the goats were harvested. Average monthly rainfall was characterised by
mostly small values with occasional large values (Fig. 11c). Rainfall followed a
seasonal pattern, with the highest values of rainfall observed in February and March,
and lowest rainfall during September, October and November.
60000
50000
40000
Number
of goats
30000
20000
10000
0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Month
Figure 12. Boxplots showing seasonality in the median, lower and upper quartiles,
and the lowest and highest numbers of goats received by abattoirs in WA.
40
The price paid for 21 micron wool declined sharply from July 1988 to about February
1991 (Fig. 11d). Since 1991, the price has fluctuated between 400 and 800 cents.
There does not appear to have been a seasonal pattern to these fluctuations, and nor
have there been any sudden fluctuations in price.
The square root of the number of goats received by the abattoir was serially
correlated, with a high (low) value in a particular month tending to be followed by a
high (low) value. To overcome the serial correlation, an autoregressive model was
fitted to the data. An autoregressive model differs from an ordinary regression model
in that it assumes dependence of errors. An autoregressive model is defined in terms
of its order, p (i.e., AR(p)), and describes a situation in which each residual from the
regression is correlated with the previous p residuals in the time series. The model
also contains an independent random error term. An autoregressive model of order 1
(i.e., AR(1)) is usually sufficient to account for the serial correlation present in the
residuals of an ordinary regression equation. Variable selection was conducted by first
considering the full model containing all explanatory variables of interest and one-byone removing those that made no significant improvements (at the 5% level) to the
model (i.e., backward-selection), and by inspection of the percentage of variation in
the data explained by the model (i.e., the R2).
Fitting the model gives an estimate of the autoregressive parameter and the adjusted
coefficients and standard errors of all the included regression variables (Table 8).
There was no systematic relationship between the residuals from the best model
(Table 8) and the order of the data (i.e., the pattern was random), and the runs test
statistic was not statistically significant. We thus concluded that the serial correlation
in the error term had been satisfactorily accounted for in this model. The best model
explained 72.4% of the variation in the number of goats received by the abattoir.
Hence, the important variables were: (i) the number of goats received in the previous
month, (ii) the current month, (iii) the average price paid per goat in the current
month, (iv) the current month’s average rainfall, and (v) the previous month’s average
rainfall.
With regard to the hypotheses outlined above, we conclude that:
1. The number of goats received (and hence assumed to have been commercially
harvested) was a function of the average price paid per goat in the previous
month. A positive relationship existed between the number of goats received
by the abattoir and the average price paid per goat in the previous month. The
model indicated that, provided all other variables remain constant, a single
dollar increase in the average price paid per goat would increase by 2.39 the
square root of the number of goats received by the abattoir in the following
month. The relationship was non-linear, with a single dollar increase in the
price having a decreasing effect on the number of goats harvested in the next
month as price in the preceding month increased. For example, if 1000 goats
had been harvested in the previous month then a single dollar increase in the
average price would lead to a 8% increase in the harvest in the following
month. However, if 40 000 goats had been harvested in the previous month
then a single dollar increase in the average price would lead to just a 1%
increase in the harvest in the next month.
41
Table 8. Regression coefficients, standard errors and P-values for the best regression
model assuming first-order autocorrelated errors. There were 180 observations in the
time series, and the model had an R2 of 72.4%.
Variable
Month
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Price paid per goat in the
previous month
Current month’s rainfall
Previous month’s rainfall
AR(1) error
Coefficient
155.4
143.9
119.7
84.1
69.2
54.8
70.1
81.3
74.0
71.1
109.9
143.3
Standard error
P-value
< 0.001
13.9
13.6
13.4
12.7
12.7
13.1
12.9
12.7
12.9
13.0
13.0
14.0
2.39
0.78
0.002
−0.214
−0.229
0.577
0.070
0.070
0.004
0.002
0.001
< 0.001
2. There was no evidence for a threshold average price paid per goat below which
goats are not commercially harvested. The abattoir received goats in all months in
which a price was offered. Further analyses (not reported here) showed no
evidence of a threshold average price. The data set would probably need to
include lower prices if a threshold price was to be estimated (if indeed it exists).
3. There was no evidence that the number of goats received by abattoirs declined
when the wool price either increased or decreased. No significant relationship was
found between the number of goats received and the average price paid per kg of
wool. When this variable was included in the autoregressive model, the coefficient
was positive (opposite to that hypothesised) but not statistically significant.
4. The number of goats received decreased with increasing rainfall.
Average rainfall in the current month was a significant linear predictor of the
number of goats received by the abattoir in the current month. The coefficient for
this variable was –0.214, meaning that provided all other variables remained
constant, an increase in the average monthly rainfall of 10 mm would decrease by
2.14 the square root of the number of goats received by the abattoir in the same
month. There was also a significant lagged relationship between the number of
goats received by the abattoir and average rainfall in the previous month. The
model coefficient was –0.229, meaning that an increase of 10 mm in the average
rainfall of a particular month would decrease by 2.29 the square root of the
number of goats received by the abattoir in the following month. Therefore, the
number of goats received by the abattoir was a function of both the current and the
previous month’s average rainfall. The effects of each of these variables were
42
additive. Both coefficients were negative (as hypothesised), thus supporting the
hypothesis that feral goats are easier to harvest in the drier months when they must
drink from artificial water sources. However, it is also possible that there is a
greater incentive for harvesting feral goats in dry months due to perceived
competition with sheep.
We note that although these data are the best available to test factors influencing the
harvest of feral goats, the data were not collected at the level of individual properties,
which is where the decisions about commercial harvesting are made.
(f) Economics of abattoirs:
Ramsay (1994) claimed that most abattoirs processing goats are primarily concerned
with slaughtering sheep, with goats purchased ‘opportunistically’. This appears to
still be the case, with the majority of goats apparently processed at two abattoirs in
2003 (Geraldton in Western Australia and Charleville in Queensland). Many factors
affect abattoir profitability, including animal supply and quality, labour quality and
cost, variable skin returns, perishable product, marketing and financing (Holst 1990).
Holst (1990) argued that the viability of the export industry depends on ‘exchange
rates, cost control and innovation’. Feral goats are transported large distances to
abattoirs or exporters in multi-decked truck-trailer units, and distance from the market
may be a constraint on the profitability of selling feral goats (Holst 1990). The
abattoir loses money on any goat <10 kg (dressed) as these animals have no
commercial value and must be disposed of. The cost to process a goat was ca. $18 per
animal (excluding freight) in 1999.
The cost of slaughtering feral goats remains higher than for sheep (Holst 1990). One
problem is contamination for both skin-on and skin-off goat meat by goat hair residue
(Elliott 1994). Although the problem has largely been overcome for skin-off goat
meat, the commercial processors interviewed by Elliott (1994) used pig processing
chains to de-hair feral goats and produce a skin-on carcass. However, due to the
differences in body shape between pigs and goats this process, in addition to
contamination, damaged carcasses with up to 3% being rejected.
There appears to be a high turnover of abattoirs processing goats. The recent drought
appears to have forced many abattoirs, some of which process feral goats, to close
(S. Sharman, Meat & Livestock Australia, personal communication).
(g) Other goat products
(i) Slaughtered and sold on the domestic market
There is little information on the size, value and characteristics of the domestic market
for goat meat. Export abattoirs can sell goat meat on the domestic market, making it
impossible to ascertain the number of goats slaughtered for domestic consumption
(Ramsay 1994). The premium domestic market is for kid meat of 6–12 kg dressed
weight (‘capretto’; Toseland 1993). Holst (1990) suggested that <10% of goat meat
enters the domestic market, and given the rise in the quantities of goat meat exported
since then (Fig. 7) it is likely that the fraction consumed domestically is now even
smaller. S. Sharman (Meat & Livestock Australia, personal communication) suggests
that feral goats are not slaughtered and sold on the domestic market because they
don’t meet the specifications defined above.
43
(ii) Fibre
Feral goats formed the basis of the domestic goat industry in Australia (Ramsay
1994), but the numbers now captured and used in breeding programs to develop herds
for fibre production are unknown. Restall (1982) reported that 72% of a herd of 125
feral does in western New South Wales had commercially recoverable fibre, and
Johnson (1985) claimed that 30% of goats in parts of Western Australia could produce
commercial quantities of cashmere. Pure-bred angora bucks are crossed with feral
does, and the progeny are crossed until the fifth generation, which is regarded as a
pure angora (Ramsay 1994).
(iii) Skins and leather
Goat skins and leather are a by-product of the goat meat industry. Thus, the supply of
skins and leather depends on the number of animals slaughtered within Australia.
Ramsay (1994) noted that where abattoirs slaughter goats infrequently, most skins are
dumped. There is no information on the size and value of the skin and leather trade
within Australia, but figures are available for exports of skins and leather (e.g.,
Ramsay 1994). Because skins and leather are a by-product of the goat meat industry,
this aspect is not considered any further in this report.
(iv) Game meat
Feral goats have been slaughtered (usually shot) in the field by hunters supplying the
game meat industry, but this industry has been defunct since about 1999 (V. Bates,
Southern Game Meat, personal communication). According to Ramsay (1994), all
such meat was exported, primarily to Carribean countries. During the 1989 to 1992
calendar years, 26 628, 38 995, 38 354 and 39 731 goats were processed as ‘wild
game’, respectively (Ramsay 1994). The method of harvesting and processing feral
goats for game meat was similar to that for feral pigs (see below). Goats were shot
using a rifle of at least .222 calibre. Ramsay (1994) claimed that most wild goats were
shot by professional kangaroo or feral pig shooters who either shot goats
opportunistically, or switched to them when prices were high. Shooters were paid
according to the weight of the carcasses. The carcasses were collected from chillers
and transported to a game meat processing establishment, where they were inspected
by officials from the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS).
4.4.2 Factors affecting the sustainability of the feral goat harvest industry
Supply issues:
A regular supply of marketable goats is a key constraint on the abattoirs’ profitability
(Black 1993; Toseland 1993; Elliott 1994). In 1993, supply of non-marketable goats
cost processors between $3 and $5 to dispose of, and the cost of freight was borne by
the supplier.
Commercial processors indicated that there is a greater demand for abattoir
slaughtered goat products than the current supply of feral goats can produce. Toseland
(1993) also suggested that sourcing sufficient product on a continuous basis was the
highest priority for the industry. Part of the inability to source sufficient feral goats
was blamed on harvesting and transport difficulties during wet weather (especially
during the winter months in western NSW).
44
Most commercial processors wanted feral goats to be incorporated into the ‘overall
business management’ of landholders, for example by constructing goat fencing and
controlling stocking rates. It was argued that such actions would improve the quantity
and quality of feral goats, reduce the environmental impacts of feral goats, diversify
the business in the semi-arid zones, and provide rural employment (Toseland 1993).
Market issues:
Two markets, Taiwan and the United States, drive the current demand for feral goats.
So far as we can tell, most of the Western Australian goats are exported to the Middle
East and South-East Asia, with the majority of the United States market supplied by
Queensland and New South Wales (see also Coffey MPW Pty Ltd 1994).
Clearly, the Western Australian landholders, transporters, abattoirs, processors and
exporters would resent regulations that reduce the profitability of their enterprises
(i.e., the regulations would not improve the price they receive for their product in their
markets). In contrast, the eastern Australian market would probably welcome
regulations that improve their ability to access other markets.
Agriculture WA’s Meat Program Strategic Plan identified several key weaknesses,
strengths and opportunities for the WA goat meat industry (cited in Coffey MPW Pty
Ltd. 1994). In summary:
• There was a heavy reliance on the seasonal Taiwanese market (Chinese
New Year; starting on the first day of the new year and ending on the
full moon). However, the overall export market was perceived to be
unsaturated and good prices for goats were available. Landholder
interest was encouraged when the price of wool was low. We note that
our analysis of the WA data (see above) showed no relationship
between wool price and the number of goats harvested, suggesting that
any attempts to encourage harvesting when the price of wool was low
were ineffective.
• The current supply is based on feral goats, which is perceived to reduce
the consistency of both quantity and quality. For example, the size of
feral goats supplied limits the number that can be marketed as a skinon product. Genetic improvement of domesticated feral herds was seen
as an opportunity to secure markets, especially in the lucrative but
discerning United States market, but this was seen as expensive to
achieve in the semi-arid rangelands.
• The restrictions on live exports imposed by AQIS limited this market,
and their costs of meat inspection at abattoirs limited profits.
• Some agencies and groups oppose allowing domestic goats in pastoral
areas.
Whereas the importance of other export markets has varied greatly over the period for
which statistics are available, the livestock handling, transporting, slaughtering, and
processing standards in Australia mean that major potential competitors to other
markets are unlikely to access the United States market. Demand for feral goats by
the United States will depend on a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the
control of regulators (e.g., exchange rates, availability of competing meats in the
United States, competition from other producers). However, it is clearly important
that all practical and reasonable efforts are made to ensure that relevant rules and
45
regulations governing the export of goat meat be adequately enforced. For example,
we doubt that United States consumers realise that most of the goat meat they are
consuming from Australia is effectively from ‘feral’ rather than domestic goats. A
review of the risks associated with the United States market is beyond the scope of
this report.
Government and landholder attitudes:
A review of the feral goat industry commissioned by the Bureau of Rural Sciences
(Agri-Focus Pty Ltd undated a, undated b) noted that the official view of feral goats as
pests was often reflected by farmer attitudes, and that these perceptions adversely
affected the sustainability of any industry based on harvesting goats. The review also
noted the lack of linkage between opportunistic harvesters (driven by price of goats)
and landholders’ requirements to manage both their domestic and feral/wild
herbivores to ensure sustainable land use.
Although these issues do not appear to have constrained the industry since 1996, any
enforcement of stocking-rate rules, based on either total numbers of herbivores or on
their impacts, could affect the feral goat harvesting industry. The effect could be
positive and ensure all landholders harvested goats, or negative and limit the
population size from which a harvest could be taken.
Olsen (1998) noted that “many farmers see harvesting of goats as an important
supplement to their farm income”, and claimed that “if the value of goats was to
increase to $25 per animal, farmers would be tempted to reduce their sheep flocks and
run more goats”. We have no evidence that this happened.
Animal welfare issues:
A model code of practice for the capture, handling and marketing of live feral goats is
being developed by the Primary Industries Ministerial Council (Anonymous 2003). In
summary:
• Capture is not recommended in the breeding season (usually
spring/summer) and when temperatures are highest. However, this is
the season when goats are most easily trapped (see above) and so the
recommendation is ignored.
• Goats should be separated into sex and age classes for transport. This
is currently done.
• Animals in late pregnancy and very young animals (and animals of no
commercial value) should not be transported but destroyed humanely.
Pregnant does are routinely transported and kids are often released at
the point of capture rather than destroyed. Their fate is unknown.
Animals should be transported to the abattoir or port according to the relevant
State/Territory codes of practice for transporting feral animals. The State/Territory
codes are governed by national model codes of practice. Since nearly all feral goats
appear to be trucked by road, their transport is governed by the model code for road
transport of livestock (Australian Bureau of Animal Health 1983). The code stipulates
that mature goats (>3 months of age) should not be transported by road for more than
36 h without a break of at least 12 h, during which feed and water should be provided.
However, the period of travel may be extended to 48 h if a full 24 h rest period is
provided. Immature goats should not be transported for more than 24 h without a
46
break of at least 12 h (Australian Bureau of Animal Health 1983). We note that a
national code of practice for the transport of feral goats is being drafted by the
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia (D. Mitchell, Department
of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia, personal communication).
4.5 Commercial harvesting of feral pigs
4.5.1 History and structure of the feral pig harvest industry
Small numbers of feral pigs were caught, fattened in captivity, and slaughtered at
abattoirs for domestic consumption when Tisdell (1982) surveyed 29 abattoirs in
1979. However, commercial harvesting of feral pigs began in earnest in Australia in
1980 after legislative changes allowing the export of game meat (Tisdell 1982;
Choquenot et al. 1996). The legislative requirements are now largely specified in the
Game, Poultry and Rabbit Meat Orders 1985 (Ramsay 1994).
The basic structure of the industry is outlined in Fig. 13.
Harvesting methods
The harvesters can be classified into three groups (Ramsay 1994): (i) part-time
recreational hunters who trap, shoot and sell pigs ‘opportunistically’ to defray the
costs of their sport; (ii) professional kangaroo shooters who shoot and sell pigs to
supplement their income; and (iii) professional hunters who trap, shoot and sell pigs
to supplement their income. Shooters usually operate in the late afternoon and
continue into the night, when spotlights are used to locate pigs. Most shooters use
four-wheel drive utilities as both a shooting platform and for transporting carcasses.
Harvesters
Sell eviscerated carcasses to chiller
Chiller operators
Purchase carcasses from hunters.
Processors
Collect carcasses from chiller operators,
process and export.
Figure 13. The structure of the feral pig harvesting industry in Australia (after
Takahashi and Tisdell 1989).
47
SCARM (1997) defines the rules for production of feral pig meat in Australia. The
key points for harvesters are as follows. First, anyone who harvests game animals
must be approved by a controlling authority and have a certificate of competency or
other approved qualification from an approved training course in the harvesting of
game animals. Second, after shooting, the carcass has to be hung, bled and field
dressed ‘without undue delay’, and the lungs, liver, heart, and kidneys retained. Third,
the carcass has to be placed under refrigeration within 2 h of harvesting, except that
when a game animal is harvested between sunset and sunrise it must be placed under
refrigeration within 2 h of sunrise. The carcass must be reduced to a deep muscle
temperature of 7oC as soon as possible but no later than 24 h after being placed under
refrigeration. There are also rules about the vehicle (which must be accredited) and
the hanging of pigs on the vehicle.
Captured and slaughtered at abattoirs for the domestic market
Small numbers of feral pigs have been captured live and transported to an abattoir for
slaughter and sold on the domestic market. Ramsay (1994) estimated that about 5–10
tonnes of feral pig meat was sold on the domestic market, with most being sold to
restaurants. Although 47 tonnes of abattoir-slaughtered feral pig meat was exported in
1986, the quantity then declined, with none exported in 1990. The meat was exported
mainly to USA and Japan, but not Europe (Ramsay 1994). This activity is presently
conducted in Queensland, where small numbers (probably <3,000) of wild-caught
feral pigs are grown until they reach 22 kg and then sold to abattoirs for slaughter
(R. Schultz, SafeFoods Queensland, personal communication). The transport of live
feral pigs is prohibited in New South Wales by the Rural Lands Protection Act 1998;
the aim of this prohibition is to prevent feral pigs being transported and released to
establish new populations.
Slaughtered in the wild and exported
(a) Number of feral pigs harvested
The number of feral pig inspected by AQIS is available for the 1998, 1999, 2001, and
2002 calendar years (i.e., no data were available for 2000; Table 8). A total of
170 335 pigs were inspected in 1998 (95% in Queensland), 254 800 in 1999 (99% in
Queensland), 322 091 in 2001 (89% in Queensland), and 180 829 in 2002 (93% in
Queensland). Up to 10% of feral pigs were processed in New South Wales. No feral
pigs were inspected in Tasmania (they do not occur there; Choquenot et al. 1996), and
only small numbers in Western Australia, Victoria, and South Australia (Table 8).
Table 8. Number of feral pig carcasses inspected by AQIS vets in Australia, 1998–
2003.Source: P.H. Smith, AQIS, personal communication.
State/Territory
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
NSW
8318
2326
n.d. a
33277
12 686
QLD
162017
252474
n.d.
288814
168143
SA
0
0
n.d.
0
0
VIC
0
1434
n.d.
0
0
TAS
0
0
n.d.
0
0
WA
15
1
n.d.
0
0
Total
170350
256235
n.d.
322091
180829
a
n.d. indicates no data available
2003
10625
128462
6932
419
0
0
146438
48
The annual harvests were highly variable. For example, the 2002 harvest was 44%
less than 2001. The 2001 harvest is almost 19% larger than the high of 271 133 (in
1992) reported by Ramsay (1994).
(b) Suppliers and chillers
Commercial harvesting operations occur mainly in New South Wales and
Queensland, but sometimes also in the Northern Territory. In 1993, there were about
200 chillers operating throughout New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern
Territory (Ramsay 1994). There are presently about 150 chillers in Queensland that
accept feral pigs (R. Schultz, Safe Foods Queensland, personal communication), and
about 115 in New South Wales (P. Day, SafeFoods New South Wales, personal
communication). We are not aware of any chillers in the Northern Territory.
Chiller agents purchase carcasses from the harvesters. According to Takahashi and
Tisdell (1989), there was usually one chiller operator in a town, and they may be 50–
100 km apart in areas from which pigs are harvested. The chillers usually accept a
variety of animals, and Takahashi and Tisdell (1989) claimed that without also
receiving kangaroos most chillers would be uneconomic. It was also claimed that due
to the distances between chillers, each chiller operator has a monopsony (i.e.,
harvesters can effectively sell to only one buyer). The shooters are paid by the kg,
with different rates for various weight classes. Prices per kg increase with the weight
of the carcass (Takahashi and Tisdell 1989; Ramsay 1994), and the lowest price is
paid for weight classes <30kg to encourage shooters to target larger animals. It is
uneconomic to process carcasses <22 kg so carcasses in this weight range cannot be
sold (Ramsay 1994). The harvest can thus be manipulated by varying both prices and
weight range. The chiller operator is typically an agent for a processing company and
is paid a commission of 8–10 cents per kg for carcasses (Ramsay 1994). The chiller
must be constructed to specified standards and approved by the controlling authority
(see SCARM 1997).
The processing companies have refrigerated trucks that collect the carcasses from
chillers and transport them to the processing plant. Because there are only a few
processors (see above) and each has its own trucking route, the chiller operators also
face a monopsony (Takahashi and Tisdell 1989). For example, one of the largest
processors of feral pigs, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, operated a network of 50–60
chillers in Queensland in 2003 (V. Bates, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal
communication). The processing plants must conform to standards and be certified
(see SCARM 1997). In January 2004 there were five feral pig processors operating,
four in Queensland and one in New South Wales (S. Roberts, AQIS, personal
communication). An additional processing plant has recently been constructed in
Queensland but is not yet processing feral pigs (S. Roberts, AQIS, personal
communication). Any processing facility seeking to export to the European Union
(EU) must be EU-accredited. All carcasses must be inspected by AQIS-approved
veterinarians before processing; about 1% are condemned due to either poor condition
or poor field dressing (V. Bates, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal
communication).
(c) Destination of exported pig meat
Almost all feral pig meat is exported, with little apparently being sold domestically.
(There are no data on the quantity of feral pig meat sold on the domestic market.) This
49
is because it is more profitable to export feral pig meat than to sell it domestically
(V. Bates, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal communication). The dominant
export market is the EU, with small quantities exported to Japan (Ramsay 1994;
Choquenot et al. 1996). Here we consider only the former in detail.
Table 9 summarises the quantities of Australian feral pig products imported into
countries within the EU during the period 1988–2001. Data for 2002 had not been
compiled at time of writing. Products A, B and C were imported only occasionally
and are not considered further. Although small amounts of frozen carcasses and half
carcasses were exported to Germany during 1999–2001 (Table 10), two products
dominated Australia’s feral pig exports to the EU. The most important markets for
frozen unboned hams, shoulders and cuts have been Germany and France, although
exports to the latter have declined sharply since 1999 (Table 11). ‘Other frozen meat
of non-domestic swine’ has been the most important product exported (Table 11). The
most important markets for this product have also been Germany and France, with
significant quantities exported to the Netherlands in some years (Table 12).
Australia’s market shares for the two most important products have both declined
greatly from 1988 to 2001 (Tables 13–15). The market share of frozen unboned hams,
shoulders and cuts of Australian feral pig have declined from 25% in 1988 to c. 6% in
2001 (Table 14). Although the quantities of product F imported by the EU from
Australia has generally increased over the period 1988–2001, the market share has
steadily declined, from c. 24% in 1988 to 11% in 2001 (Table 15). There was a major
increase in the quantities of product F imported into the EU in 1995, and again in
2001. Most of this expansion was to countries other than Australia’s primary markets
(i.e., Germany, France and Netherlands), with particular increases in imports to
Belgium-Luxembourg, United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. The United States
began exporting product F to the EU in 1994, and is now an important competitor
with Australia in France, Germany and the Netherlands.
Table 9. Tonnes of Australian feral pig products imported into countries within the EU,
1988–2001. Data provided by H. Lyons, Eurostat Datashop UK.
Product1
A
B
C
D
E
F
Total
France
1
0
0
6.3
0
2090.4
9741.2
11837.9
Belgium
0
0
0
0
7.8
113.0
120.8
Netherlands
0
0
0
11.3
136.6
1438.2
1586.1
Germany
17.0
23.9
47.2
635.4
2863.1
14841.7
18428.3
Italy
UK
Ireland
0
0
1.4
129.4
64.3
280.3
475.4
0
0
1.4
0
15.8
55.4
72.6
0
0
0
0
0.1
0
0.1
Denmark
0
0
0
0
0
10.1
10.1
Portugal
Belgium
0
0
0
0
40.0
70.9
110.9
A, Fresh or chilled non-domestic swine carcasses and half-carcasses; B, Fresh or chilled hams, shoulders and cuts
thereof with bone in of non-domestic swine; C, Fresh or chilled meat of non-domestic swine (excl. carcasses and
half-carcasses, hams, shoulders and cuts thereof, boneless); D, Frozen non-domestic swine carcasses and halfcarcasses; E, frozen unboned hams, shoulders and cuts thereof of non-domestic swine; F, Frozen meat of nondomestic swine (excl. carcasses and half-carcasses and hams, shoulders and cuts thereof).
0
0
0
0
0
115.7
115.7
Total
17.0
23.9
56.3
776.1
5218.1
26666.5
32757.9
50
Table 10. Tonnes of frozen non-domestic swine carcasses and half-carcasses imported into
the Netherlands, Germany and Italy, 1988–2001. Data provided by H. Lyons, Eurostat
Datashop UK.
Year
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Total
Netherlands
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
11.3
0
0
0
0
0
11.3
Germany
0
0
7.7
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
15.4
258.9
167.6
185.8
635.4
Italy
0
0
27.0
0
0
0
0
0
0
102.4
0
0
0
0
129.4
Table 11. Tonnes of frozen unboned hams, shoulders and cuts thereof of non-domestic swine
imported into the EU, 1988–2001. Data provided by H. Lyons, Eurostat Datashop UK.
Year
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Total
France
141.7
306.1
38.0
285.0
371.4
134.2
61.7
106.3
337.4
73.8
62.7
134.2
37.9
0
2090.4
Belgium
0
0
0
0
0
0
7.8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
7.8
Netherlands Germany
0
262.2
0
207.0
27.5
87.3
0
217.3
0
229.3
17.9
323.8
16.7
254.7
8.6
175.4
0
250.0
3.9
182.8
27.5
118.0
34.5
219.4
0
170.5
0
165.4
136.6
2863.1
Italy
0
0
0
0
0
0
35.5
21.8
7
0
0
0
0
0
64.3
UK
0
15.8
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
15.8
Ireland
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.1
0
0.1
Portugal
0
0
14.5
15.0
1.4
9.1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
40
Total
403.9
528.9
167.3
517.3
602.1
485.0
376.4
312.1
594.4
260.5
208.2
388.1
208.5
165.4
5218.1
51
Table 12. Tonnes of frozen meat of non-domestic swine (excl. carcasses and half-carcasses
and hams, shoulders and cuts thereof) imported into the EU, 1988–2001. Data provided by
H. Lyons, Eurostat Datashop UK.
Year
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Total
France
466.7
693.1
272.9
626.7
965.6
685.4
828.6
400.2
706.0
628.9
694.4
827.3
892.6
1052.8
9741.2
Belgium
5.2
13.6
0
0
1.0
0
21.2
28.4
13.7
29.9
0
0
0
0
113.0
Netherlands
56.4
21.3
37.5
1.9
0
39.3
37.5
22.4
29.1
226.3
218.3
474.0
90.5
183.7
1438.2
Germany
766.0
1155.1
985.1
670.0
1350.2
1807.8
864.7
766.1
834.0
803.0
720.9
1279.1
1127.7
1712.0
14841.7
Italy
0
19.3
0
0
0
0
159.5
19.8
9.1
0
1.9
0
43.0
27.7
280.3
UK
0
13.1
0
0.8
2.1
0
0
0
25.5
13.6
0
0
0
0.3
55.4
Denmark
0
0
0
0
10.1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
10.1
Portugal Belgium
Total
0
0
1294.3
0
0
1915.5
0
0
1295.5
0
0
1299.4
26.9
0
2355.9
44.0
0
2576.5
0
0
1911.5
0
0
1236.9
0
0
1617.4
0
0
1701.7
0
0
1635.5
0
45.4
2625.8
0
49.2
2203.0
0
21.1
2997.6
70.9
115.7
26666.5
Table 13. The market share for feral pig products in the EU, 1988–2001. Data provided by
H. Lyons, Eurostat Datashop UK.
Product1
From EU
From non-EU
From Australia
Total
Australia
(% total)
175976.0
9840.0
17.0
185815.8
0.01
A
B
62362.7
517.5
23.9
62904.1
0.04
C
81151.2
2785.9
56.3
83993.4
0.07
D
16997.4
10158.3
776.1
27931.8
2.78
E
32028.5
8745.3
5218.1
45203.6
11.55
F
111918.0
40467.4
26666.5
176344.4
15.12
Total
480433.1
72514.4
32757.9
582193.1
5.63
1
A, Fresh or chilled non-domestic swine carcasses and half-carcasses; B, Fresh or chilled hams, shoulders and cuts
thereof with bone in of non-domestic swine; C, Fresh or chilled meat of non-domestic swine (excl. carcasses and
half-carcasses, hams, shoulders and cuts thereof, boneless); D, Frozen non-domestic swine carcasses and halfcarcasses; E, frozen unboned hams, shoulders and cuts thereof of non-domestic swine; F, Frozen meat of nondomestic swine (excl. carcasses and half-carcasses and hams, shoulders and cuts thereof).
52
Table 14. The Australian market share of annual imports of frozen unboned hams, shoulders
and cuts thereof of non-domestic swine in the EU, 1988–2001. Data provided by H. Lyons,
Eurostat Datashop UK.
Year
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Total
From non-EU
788.3
853.5
700.8
1030.5
1115.0
730.2
513.5
406.8
761.4
388.9
290.6
503.3
353.0
309.5
8745.3
From EU
411.2
683.1
625.2
482.8
1215.9
2071.3
2059.2
4990.0
4308.9
3727.4
3304.7
2497.7
3567.2
2083.9
32028.5
From Australia
403.9
528.9
167.3
517.3
602.1
485.0
376.4
312.1
594.4
260.5
208.2
388.1
208.5
165.4
5218.1
Total
1603.4
2065.5
1493.3
2030.6
2933.0
3286.5
2949.1
5708.9
5664.7
4376.8
3803.5
3389.1
4128.7
2558.8
45991.9
Australia
(% total)
25.19
25.61
11.20
25.48
20.53
14.76
12.76
5.44
10.49
5.95
5.47
11.45
5.05
6.46
11.35
Table 15. The Australian market share of annual imports of frozen meat of non-domestic
swine (excl. carcasses and 1/2 carcasses and hams, shoulders and cuts thereof) in the EU,
1988–2001. Data provided by H. Lyons, Eurostat Datashop UK.
Year
From non-EU
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
Total
2707.0
3351.7
2643.1
3056.6
3691.6
3093.9
2301.3
1584.9
2139.2
2551.6
2669.5
3436.6
3074.6
4165.8
40467.4
From EU
1444.1
1173.6
1564.7
1887.3
3939.3
3665.9
5032.3
13689.7
15293.7
11608.8
11453.0
10067.2
10811.4
20286.5
111917.5
From Australia
1294.3
1915.5
1295.5
1299.4
2355.9
2576.5
1911.5
1236.9
1617.4
1701.7
1635.5
2625.8
2203.0
2997.6
26666.5
Total
5445.4
6440.8
5503.3
6243.3
9986.8
9336.3
9245.1
16511.5
19050.3
15862.1
15758.0
16129.6
16089.0
27449.9
176344.4
Australia
(% total)
23.77
29.74
23.54
20.81
23.59
27.60
20.68
7.49
8.49
10.73
10.38
16.28
13.69
10.92
15.12
Germany was the world’s largest importer of feral pig meat during 1981–1990
(Ramsay 1994), and was the largest importer during 1990–2001. Ramsay claimed that
Eastern European countries dominated world supply prior to Australia’s entry into the
market in 1980. Australia’s dominance of the market in the late 1980s is now much
reduced, supplying an average of 11% of product F during 1995–2001.
(d) Economics
The number of feral pigs inspected annually by AQIS shows great variation, but the
reasons for this are unclear. Ramsay (1994) noted that in 1992, when some 270 000
53
feral pigs were inspected, “the industry reported that it was supply-limited”. As noted
above, this cannot be true because as long as feral pigs remain then it is the price paid
per kg that will determine the number supplied. We suspect that what is really meant
is that “at the price we are willing to pay for feral pigs our capacity for processing and
exporting at that price is under-utilised”.
We suspect that the price paid to the harvesters is determined largely by factors over
which Australia has little or no control, in particular exchange rates and the quantity
and prices of feral pig products in the numerous competing exporting countries.
However, there is strong evidence that the quantity and quality of feral pigs available
for harvesting varies greatly as a consequence of variation in rainfall. Processors
attributed the very low annual harvest in 2003 to a severe drought over much of
Queensland and New South Wales (V. Bates, Southern Game Meats Pty Ltd, personal
communication).
The price paid per kg to harvesters is likely to be affected by a number of variables.
Competition for pigs from other processors is likely to drive prices up and increase
the number harvested, at least in the short term. However, the primary determinant is
likely to be the demand for the Australian product within the EU. We could find little
information on what drives price paid per kg for feral pig meat within the EU, but
clearly the exchange rate and the amount supplied by competitors will be important.
Supply by European countries appears to be at least partly determined by climatic
conditions (the abundance of pigs declines with increasing winter severity; Lozan
1995). Feral pig populations in Australia undergo large fluctuations in abundance due
to rainfall affecting their food sources, but it is unclear how this affects residual
densities of feral pigs.
A key similarity between the feral pig and feral goat harvesting industries is that
nearly all of both products are exported rather than consumed domestically. Hence,
both markets are subject to the vagaries of the international marketplace, in particular
currency fluctuations, competition and politics.
However, there are also several important differences between the feral goat and feral
pig harvesting industries that should be considered. First, feral pigs are harvested and
sold by accredited professionals or semi-professionals, whereas most feral goats
appear to be harvested by the property managers and their staff. Some of the latter
maintain high densities of feral goats for weed control, or because they are only
interested in traditional domestic livestock. In contrast, we suspect that most managers
perceive feral pigs to be a negative impact on farming practices (because they root
pasture and kill lambs; Choquenot et al. 1996) and will permit commercial harvesters
on to their property. Second, virtually all feral pigs are wild-shot whereas feral goats
are captured and slaughtered at an abattoir. This fact affects the markets to which the
products are exported. Third, nearly all feral pig products are exported to the EU, and
there are many competitors in this market. In contrast, no goat meat (or live goats) is
exported to the EU, and the largest market (which is likely to continue to grow) is
now the United States, to which Australia has few competitors due to restrictive
hygiene regulations. Feral pig cannot be exported to North America because of the
requirement for an ante-mortem veterinary inspection.
54
4.5.2 Factors affecting the sustainability of the feral pig harvest industry
Supply
The supply of feral pigs is likely to be determined by the abundance, condition and
vulnerability of feral pigs to harvesting. The abundance of feral pigs in Australia
appears to vary greatly in both space and time (Choquenot et al. 1996). Choquenot
(1998) experimentally demonstrated that the abundance of feral pigs in the New South
Wales rangelands was determined by pasture biomass, which in itself was determined
by rainfall. The abundance of feral pigs in the wet-dry tropics also appears to be
governed by rainfall via food availability (Caley 1993). Rainfall is perceived as an
important determinant of feral pig abundance by the harvesters and processors, with
lower abundance of pigs following periods of low rainfall (V. Bates, Southern Game
Meats, personal communication). One perceived constraint on the supply of feral pigs
is the effect of government-funded control operations on the abundance of feral pigs
(e.g., by the Rural Lands Protection Boards in the Macquarie Marshes in 2003;
V. Bates, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal communication; see also Takahashi
and Tisdell 1989).
Another factor influencing supply is the seasonal change in the quality of feral pigs
(Choquenot et al. 1996), with body condition declining as food availability declines
(Giles 1980). Harvesters perceive feral pigs to be most vulnerable to harvesting
following the grain harvest in both New South Wales and Queensland, when they
congregate on stubbles and are easier to see, shoot and recover (V. Bates, Southern
Game Meats Pty Ltd, personal communication).
The price paid by the chiller operators for feral pig is likely to be a major determinant
of supply, but there is no data with which to investigate this relationship for feral pigs
in Australia (c.f. feral goats). The availability of shooters (Ramsay 1994) is likely to
be influenced both by the prices paid for feral pigs (more shooters would enter the
industry when prices are high) and by the prices paid for kangaroos (i.e., shooters
target kangaroos rather than feral pigs). Few shooters are likely to be available in
remote and sparsely populated areas (Ramsay 1994).
Demand
The primary constraints on demand for feral pigs are likely to be international
exchange rates and the quantities and price of feral pig products from competitors:
these factors interact to create a “volatile” international feral pig meat market
(Ramsay 1994). However, we can find no information or data (other than that
presented above) describing how these factors affect the price paid by chillers for feral
pigs in Australia.
European buyers would also like all feral pigs delivered in June, July and August so
they can be sold during the northern winter, when demand is greatest (V. Bates,
Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal communication). Storing feral pigs processed
in January and February until May is obviously a cost that processors would like to
avoid, if possible. Hence, most feral pig meat is exported between May and December
to meet that demand (Ramsay 1994). The price paid per kg also changes seasonally.
Southern Game Meats processed 127 248 feral pigs in the 2002 calendar year, and
111 155 during January–June 2003 (V. Bates, Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal
communication). When the price paid falls below about $0.60/kg, pig hunters tend to
55
give up, with some apparently switching to kangaroos. Between July 2002 and June
2003, the monthly price paid per kg ranged between $0.74 and $1.22 (V. Bates,
Southern Game Meat Pty Ltd, personal communication), and the largest numbers of
feral pigs were processed between June and October (c. 10 000–20 000). There was
no processing of feral pigs in January, and <7000 month-1 in February to April.
Weather conditions probably affect both the quantity and quality of feral pigs
available for harvesting in Europe (Lozan 1995). Nothing is known about the relative
costs of raising, harvesting, processing, and transporting feral pig meat in Europe. The
farming and ranching of ‘wild boar’ has increased substantially in Europe, Japan and
the United States (Takahashi and Tisdell 1989; Ramsay 1994). The farmed pigs are
either exported live, or slaughtered and the meat exported. For example, there are no
feral pigs in either Ireland or the UK, yet both nations export substantial amounts of
‘wild boar’ meat to the European Community (‘EC’; Eurostat Datashop UK,
unpublished data).
Demand can also be restricted by legislation in the importing countries. For example,
Germany questioned whether Australian feral pig could be labelled as ‘wild boar’
given the uncertain origins of the populations in 1985/86 (Ramsay 1994). Germany
now requires that Australian feral pig is labelled as Australian wild pig
(‘Australisches wildschweinfleish’) (Ramsay 1994). In 1991, the EC proposed to
classify Australian ‘wild boar’ as meat of domestic pigs for tariff reasons. As in the
1980s, Australian officials were able to demonstrate that the feral pig products
exported to Europe should be termed ‘wild boar’ (Ramsay 1994).
There are several potentially important markets to which Australian feral pig meat
currently cannot be exported. Canada, the United States, and the Republic of Korea
require an ante-mortem of animals, and clearly this is not possible for wild-shot pigs.
Note that this contrasts with the goat situation; wild-caught goats get an ante-mortem
inspection and hence can be exported to these three countries.
4.6 Maximising conservation benefits of commercial harvesting of goats
Management of feral goats through commercial harvesting provides profits to the
harvesters, processors and exporters, and uses the animals as a resource (which makes
the management more acceptable to some people than culling to waste), and requires
little or no government investment. Commercial harvests may be sufficient to provide
collateral benefits to biodiversity and the environment (see below), but may also
compromise optimal solutions for those who see feral goats as pests if it maintains
feral goats at unacceptable densities or in inappropriate places.
Any regular commercial harvest from a feral goat population will reduce the size of
the population, but the key questions are:
• Is the reduction by itself sufficient to reduce goat populations to protect
the conservation values being threatened?
• Even if it is enough, how frequently should harvesting or control be
imposed to sustain the conservation benefits?
56
4.6.1 How much can commercial harvesting reduce goat densities?
The answer to this question depends in part on the efficiency of the capture method
used and on its frequency of application (West and Saunders 2003).
Capture efficiencies
The proportion of goats removed by mustering appears to be highly variable. In
Western Australia, only 30–40% of goats were usually taken (G. Pickles, unpublished
data cited in Parkes et al. 1996a). However, 80% of goats were mustered in one 50km2 area of the Flinders Ranges (Henzell 1984) and on Woody Island (Queensland)
(Allen 1991), and by a similar amount on some monitored properties in Queensland
(Thompson et al. 1999). Three musters in north-west New South Wales captured
26%, 38% and 58% of the estimated number of goats present, and one large scale
trapping session captured 42% of the estimated number of goats present (Casburn et
al. 1999).
The proportion of goats removed by trapping at water depends, in part, on the
proportion of water points where goats can drink without risk. Parkes et al. (1996a)
suggest that reductions range from 30–80%. In a trial on Pimbee Station (Western
Australia), all 11 water points in 68 000 ha were trapped in summer 1996 over a week
when the temperature was generally less than 30ºC and there was some light rain (i.e.,
conditions were not ideal). Aerial surveys before and after the trapping indicated that
removing 730 goats decreased the population by 58% from 1091 ± 288 (SE) to 455 ±
199 animals (Eliot and Pearce 1998). Henzell (1984) also reported that over a fouryear period commercial trapping and ground mustering reduced the numbers of goats
on the 1000 km2 Gammon Ranges National Park from 17 000 to 1000 animals, a 94%
reduction.
These harvesting methods compare favourably with control tactics commonly used in
the rangelands. Aerial shooting from helicopters has reduced populations from
between 45–99% depending on the number of repeated sortees (see references in
Parkes et al. 1996a). Pearce (1998) reported that a single aerial shooting operation
(from a helicopter using a fixed-wing plane to spot the goats) removing 4.1 goats/km2
from a 1120 km2 area on the Gascoyne River (Western Australia) reduced the
population from 7.7 ± 1.4 to 4.2 ± 1.1 goats/km2 (i.e., a 45% reduction).
Frequency of application
Feral goats have high rates of increase when food is not limiting. The intrinsic rate of
increase (rm) has been estimated as 0.395 (Mahood 1985) and 0.414 in western New
South Wales (Maas 1997), and 0.425 in South Australia (Parkes et al. 1996a). Feral
goat populations can therefore recover from a 60% reduction within two years. Thus,
any single harvest or control operation has to either achieve a high percent reduction
or be repeated frequently if the residual or average density of goats is to be held at low
levels.
4.6.2 Is this enough to provide conservation benefits?
No study has attempted to answer this question by monitoring changes in biodiversity
in areas where goats are commercially harvested. Hence, we can only speculate on
the answer to this question. First, relationships between goat densities and the
57
biomass/condition of the plants they eat will vary depending on the biomass of that
species, the preference of goats for that species and its ability to tolerate the removal
of biomass (Nugent et al. 2001). Primary food species may be protected by
commercial harvesting, but secondary highly preferred species may be eaten to
extinction at densities from which commercial harvesting is uneconomic. Second,
factors other than feral goats are likely to be important for biodiversity (sensu Coomes
et al. 2003), and some of these factors (e.g., rainfall and fire) will interact with goat
density to determine biodiversity outcomes. For example, a reduction in the density of
feral goats by commercial harvesting may have little effect on biodiversity until rain
falls.
One approach used to answering the question has been to assess the proportion of
plant production that is eaten by feral goats and by other sympatric herbivores
(usually sheep, kangaroos and rabbits in the rangelands). Parkes et al. (1996a)
calculated that goats at densities of 2 km-2 consumed about 0.4% of the net annual
above ground plant production (including all the non-palatable parts and species) in
rangelands with a 240 mm annual rainfall. That density of goats would still allow a
viable commercial harvest (Henzell 1984). It was estimated that such rangelands
could support c. 20 goat-equivalent herbivores and so goats at 2 km-2 would consume
c. 10% of the food eaten by mammalian herbivores.
Tiver and Andrew (1997) measured short-term recruitment and longer-term
regeneration patterns from the population structure of 18 shrub/tree species in eastern
South Australia and tried to interpret these data according to some crude estimates of
sheep, goat, kangaroo and rabbit usage of the sites. Ten plant species were negatively
affected by herbivory, but only one (Casuarina pauper) was explained only by goats’
usage of the sites. Sheep herbivory (past and current) was the most important variable.
A second approach (Caughley et al. 1987) has been to focus on the interaction
between goats and their food plants. Maas (1997) manipulated goat densities in rocky
outcrop habitats in NSW and measured pasture and shrub biomass and rainfall. She
concluded that feral goats at densities of between 3.5 and 9 animals/km2 reduced the
biomass of shrubs (particularly mulga [Acacia aneura] and narrow-leaf waxflower
[Eriostemon linearis]) in dry conditions, but their impact on grasses was unclear. At
these densities food abundance did affect the goats’ rate of increase.
The third approach is to use adaptive experimental management and monitor range
condition across sites with different ‘treatments’ and attempt to interpret the observed
differences. A system to develop this monitoring is being developed under the
Australian Collaborative Rangelands Information System (ACRIS) (see Smyth et al.
2004 and other papers in that issue of Austral Ecology). For example, the Western
Australian Rangeland Monitoring System has about 950 monitoring sites in the
pastoral rangelands (the areas with feral goats) that have been asssessed every 5 or 6
years since 1992 (Watson and Novelly 2004). This system could be interrogated to
assess the impacts of feral goats. For example, feral goats are not present at all sites,
are managed differently among other sites, and on some stations managed by CALM
livestock have probably been ‘eradicated’ (or at least much reduced in abundance) by
closing artificial water sources.
58
4.6.3 Harvesting scenarios
We can discuss and rank in increasing order of potential conservation benefit some
typical harvesting scenarios that might result where landholders have different views
of feral goats, and where these behaviours might be encouraged or discouraged by
legislation or policy – such as subsidising the costs of harvesting or enforcing goat
stocking rates.
The model
We use a conceptual model (Fig. 14) of the economics of feral goat harvesting
developed by Cook (1995). This model was based on the Western Australian industry
and assumes that goat populations grow according to the logistic growth curve, the
simplest class of population model where the population grows at a maximum rate
until some factor (usually food supply) begins to limit its rate of increase and the
population eventually stabilises at its ‘carrying capacity’ (K) when the rate of increase
is zero (Gilpin and Ayala 1973):
N t +1 = N t exp( rm (1 − (
Nt θ
) )),
K
where N is the population size in year t, rm is the intrinsic rate of increase, K is the
TC1
Costs and
benefits of
hunting
effort ($)
MEY2
MEY1
MSY
TB
TC2
Ecrit
Goat abundance
EMS E E
Emi
Hunting effort
Figure 14. The model of sustainable yield developed by Cook (1995) for
understanding the commercial harvest of feral goats in Western Australia.
carrying capacity, and θ represents the form of density-dependence, i.e., the density
at which factors such as per capita food begin to limit the growth of the population.
59
Cook (1995) set θ at 1, where the limiting density is at K/2, but it is probably above 1
and the limiting density above K/2 (see Barlow and Clout 1983). The logistic model
oversimplifies the interaction between goats and their food because it assumes that
goats do not affect the rate of growth of their food. Maas (1997) showed that this
might be so for goats grazing grass in the rangelands of NSW, but was not so for their
interaction with the woody scrub vegetation. She also tested how well the logistic
model (both with instantaneous and lagged effects of food abundance) approximated
the growth of a feral goat population following control to low densities, and found it
to be a poor approximation. Choquenot et al. (1998) also outlined models that may be
more suitable than the simple logistic for feral goats living in the semi-arid
rangelands. However, the logistic model is still a useful framework for investigating
the scenarios we wish to explore (Choquenot et al. 1995), especially as the value of θ
will not dramatically alter the harvesting dynamics if the density of goats is held at
modest levels.
The maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for a population subject to logistic growth
occurs at density K/2 and at a rate of rm/0.5. Hence, the maximum sustainable harvest
is rm×K/4 (Caughley 1977) – or for feral goats in the absence of competitors 3
goats/km2 per year assuming rates of increase (0.4) and maximum densities (30/km2)
described in Parkes et al. (1996a) and this report.
Harvesting (or control) requires effort (E). The total benefit (TB) that the harvesters
receive is TB = p×H, where p is the mean price paid to the harvester per goat and H
the number harvested. H is related to the harvesting effort and the costs to harvest
each goat. Cook (1995) assumed costs to be constant across goat densities. This is
unlikely to be true, especially at lower densities, and will also differ depending on the
cost structures (capital infrastructure versus time to search and apply) of each
harvesting or control method. For example, empirical data for helicopter shooting of
feral goats indicate that the costs of harvesting increase rapidly as densities decline
below about 1 goat km-2 in open mulga woodlands (Pople et al. 1998).
Because the price paid per feral goat by abattoirs is constant across goat densities (at
least at the individual property level), TB is the same shape as the productivity curve.
The total costs (TC) and total benefits (TB) of hunting effort are shown on the y-axis
of Fig. 14, and goat abundance (increasing from left to right) and hunting effort
(increasing from right to left) are shown on the x-axis. Note that there is a threshold
goat abundance, at Ecrit, below which a feral goat population is likely to go extinct due
to demographic and environmental stochasticity.
Commercial harvesters act to maximise their profit from the feral goats. The
harvesters should expend the effort at which the distance between TB and TC is
maximised; this point is the maximum economic yield (MEY). Note that MEY may
not occur at MSY depending on how the TC curve changes with goat density.
There are several additional limitations to Cook’s model. First, the harvesters do not
know the future price paid for feral goats; if it fluctuates greatly without being
predictable then harvesters should tend to increase harvests when the price is high.
Hence, many harvesters may simply attempt to maximise short-term profit by
harvesting until TC=TB. Given that nearly all landholders would perceive domestic
sheep to be their main outcome, this may be a very common phenomenon. Second, it
60
is unlikely that the production curve (and hence the TB curve) looks like that derived
from the θ-logistic model. This is because the food supply of the goats probably
renews at a slower rate than that supposed by the logistic model. Further, the food
supply is subject to great variation due to highly stochastic rainfall (a key determinant
of pasture biomass) in semi-arid regions (Caughley et al. 1987). Third, goats and
sheep compete for forage, at least over some range of pasture composition, so that
landholders may perceive a greater cost to having goats at one time compared to
another depending upon the availability of pasture and browse, and the potential for
competition between goats and sheep.
Scenario 1: Harvesting from a high density
Some landholders may wish to hold high densities of goats to control weeds but
harvest the annual production (say of males). First, it is likely that goat densities well
above MSY would have to be held before weed control is effective. For example,
feral goat densities of 100/km2 were required to kill up to 90% of hopbush in western
NSW (Torpy et al. 1992). Such requirements for high densities mean that the animals
have to be effectively fenced and only a small sustained harvest can be taken if the
density is to be maintained, i.e., there are high infrastructure costs and low direct
annual income from harvesting, although the benefits to production by reduced weeds
presumably justify these net costs. The conservation benefits are (at best) unclear –
there might be benefits as competition from exotic weeds are reduced, but there might
be losses as native plants more palatable than the weeds are removed, all with flow-on
indirect consequences for other biota in the system. The interaction between goat
density and time may also be important for understanding goats as weed controllers
(i.e., is it better to have a higher density for a shorter time rather than a lower density
for a longer time?).
From a biodiversity conservation perspective, there seems to be little benefit in
promoting goats as agricultural weed controllers when the weeds are native species.
However, where the weeds are exotic species there may be net benefits to
conservation if the goats (and domestic animals) are managed with both weed control
and biodiversity in mind. Research is required to understand the trade-offs.
Scenario 2: Harvesting from MSY or MEY densities
Some landholders may wish to maximise their annual profit from harvesting feral
goats by holding the population at the density where the annual recruitment or annual
economic yield is highest. This density is probably where food starts to limit the birth
rates and/or survival rates of the goats, and impacts on their primary food plants
worsen as goat density increases.
From a biodiversity conservation perspective, there seems little benefit in promoting
this strategy, but where landholders choose it they should be encouraged or forced to
manage the goats as part of total stocking rate rules – more goats, less sheep and
kangaroos! Cook (1995) explored the option of including feral goats in the overall
stocking rates. If there is a real penalty to this, such as forcing the landholder to
control goats (or billing the landholder for the costs of control), then landholders
should increase hunting effort such that there is a lower goat density; the density of
the residual goat density will depend on the size of the penalty. Thus, including feral
goats as part of stocking densities, and placing a penalty on landholders by requiring
them to enforce those stocking densities, will decrease the residual goat density.
61
Depending upon the size of the penalty, the long-term average annual commercial
harvest of goats may well be reduced. Again, without knowing how stocking
densities (of sheep and goat) relate to rangeland condition and biodiversity
conservation, we cannot speculate further on the implications of our recommendations
for the economics of the industry. However, there seems to be little incentive for
enforcing existing regulations; this may be because they are legally ‘weak’. Hence,
these regulations cannot be relied on for achieving any conservation benefits.
Scenario 3: Taking a large but infrequent harvest
Some landholders ‘farm’ their feral goats by harvesting a very high proportion and
then allow the numbers to recover over several years before repeating the operation.
This has advantages to the landholder because it reduces the per capita costs and can
be done in years when the income is most needed, e.g., often in droughts when
income from sheep is lower.
From a biodiversity conservation perspective, there might be benefits in this strategy
if the harvests coincide with times of maximum impacts (e.g., in droughts) or if the
periodic reductions are sufficient to allow a pulse of regeneration, particularly of
shrubs. R. Henzell (personal communication and unpublished data) suggested that
such pulses of mulga regeneration had more to do with periods of low rabbit densities
than of changes in other herbivore densities, but post-rabbit haemorrhagic disease
(RHD) this relationship may be different if the disease suppresses rabbit densities for
a long time.
Scenario 4: Taking a minimum economically viable harvest from low density
Some landholders see goats as pests either because of their effects on biodiversity or
because they compete with their main enterprise, sheep. They can use commercial
harvesting to (a) reduce goat densities to some acceptable level in a one-off operation
and (b) as a sustained but small annual harvest to keep the population at these low
levels. Whether they should use commercial harvesting to achieve (b) depends on the
net costs of this compared with the costs of just controlling the goats by other means
such as shooting, and the extent of the increased returns from domestic livestock if
competition from goats was a factor.
Henzell (1984) claimed that commercial harvesting of feral goats became uneconomic
at densities below c. 1 km-2 – neatly, about the density at which costs/goat killed in
helicopter shooting increased rapidly (Pople et al. 1998).
From a biodiversity conservation perspective, this scenario offers the best opportunity
for directly influencing outcomes. Providing subsidies on costs (e.g., via the tax
system) to harvesters for building traps and mustering yards would act to decrease
part of the costs of harvesting and would allow smaller harvests to be sustained from
lower goat densities. Subsidies on price are probably not acceptable to governments
and in any case would have to flow-on to the landholders before it changed their
behaviour. Similarly, reducing the costs of compliance with AQIS rules would help
abattoir profitability but would only change landholders’ behaviour if this was passed
on to them in the price they were paid.
Although subsidies would act to reduce densities of feral goats on properties where
landholders do not aim to maximise their profit from goats, i.e., where they consider
62
goats as pests, subsidies are less likely to increase the number of properties from
which goats are commercially harvested under scenario 4. Penalties (such as
enforcing stocking rate rules underpinned by sanctions on leases) might drive some
landholders from scenarios with least benefit to biodiversity conservation towards
scenario 4. The difficulty would be in demonstrating that the subsidy was used for the
stated purpose. For example, it would be difficult to demonstrate that a subsidy to
improve infrastructure for trapping goats at waterpoints was used only for that
purpose and not for the benefit of domestic sheep (e.g., yards).
We can speculate about the general implications of our recommendations for the
profitability of the major abattoirs. The abattoirs currently run well below their
maximum annual processing capacity. The annual capacity of these abattoirs would
be maximised in the long-term if feral goats were harvested on all properties at the
MSY. However, as the model above shows, feral goats should be harvested (from the
farmer’s perspective should he wish to maximise profits) at MEY rather than MSY.
Increasing both subsidies and penalties could act to increase the number of goats
received, but if the subsidies and penalties are very large then the number of goats
received by the abattoir will be much reduced as harvesting occurs at goat abundances
much less than MSY. We do not know the number of goats required by the major
abattoirs to remain economic (this presumably depends on the difference between
income [price paid to the abattoir by the exporter for the goat product] and costs
[wages, infrastructure, etc]), but the potential for the slaughter and processing industry
to become uneconomic must be acknowledged. Hence, the economics of the industry
will depend upon the size of the subsidies/penalties; these are presently unknown but
should be linked to rangeland/biodiversity condition.
4.6.4 Management options to minimise threats from domestic goat farming
Escaping goats might be managed either by pro-active management that aims to
reduce the risk of escapes, or by reactive management that accepts escapes as
inevitable and plans to detect and deal with them in an efficient way, or some
combination of both (Fraser et al. 2003). The optimal mix between being proactive
and reactive will depend on the frequency and cause of new populations and the
probability that they will be detected and eradicated efficiently.
For example, proactive management (e.g., restrictions on farming, fencing standards
that are enforced) would be best where the goats present are at the more-domesticated
end of the spectrum and their escape would allow establishment of new feral herds in
areas not currently inhabited by goats. Reactive management (e.g., detection and
eradication or recapture) would be best where restrictions on land use cannot be
imposed or where escapes are common irrespective of the husbandry possible. It
would be possible to assess the costs and benefits of each or a mix of proactive and
reactive management if data on escapes and costs to manage them were available.
Pro-active management
The best legal way to reduce the threat to biodiversity conservation posed by escaping
domestic goats is to ban the keeping of goats. This is unrealistic as a general solution,
but both State laws (e.g., in South Australia in the Flinders Ranges Planning Area)
and local government (e.g., in land-use planning) can restrict goat farming in some
areas.
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Given the generally slow dispersal rates of goats, restricting the keeping of goats
within some defined distance from high-priority goat-free conservation areas might be
worth exploring. Alternatives are to have goat owners agree to keep only wethers, or
agree to sunset conditions on current animals in or adjacent to such areas.
Setting fencing standards, levels of husbandry, stocking rates, and identification by
branding or ear tagging for domestic goats are prescribed in some States. It is unclear
whether the level of pro-active enforcement of these rules changes the risk that goats
escape and become feral. However, some clear rules and sanctions about the fate of
domestic goats that are abandoned might be worth developing if this turns out to be a
common event. Note: it is unclear whether legal sanctions against releasing feral
animals applies to abandoning domestic goats in situ.
Reactive management
An alternative or additional management response to escaping goats is to invest in
surveillance and prompt reaction to any such events.
We do not have any information on the frequency of establishment of new feral
populations, let alone on the causes (see section 4.2.3). It is therefore difficult to be
specific about how agencies might invest in surveillance and reaction. One possible
solution is to institute a surveillance regime (we would suggest in priority areas where
feral goats are patchily distributed, such as adjacent to reserved tenures as in the
eastern areas of eastern States), identify causes, and measure how much it costs to
control or eradicate the new populations (see Fraser et al. 2003 for an example for
new deer populations in New Zealand).
In the absence of data on the actual frequency of establishment of new populations or
the probability that they are discovered and eradicated, it is difficult to determine how
much should be allocated to management of spread versus control in situ, or what
proportion of the ‘management of spread’ budget should be allocated to pro-active
tasks and how much to reactive tasks.
4.7 Key policy issues, information gaps and recommended solutions
Below we outline key issues in policy options for commercial use of feral goats. We
also outline the perceived benefits and opportunities identified by stakeholders we
consulted.
4.7.1 Risks of new feral goat populations establishing
Policy issue
Goats can and do escape from captivity. Such escapes pose two risks. First, they can
move into goat-free areas and establish a new population. Second, they can move into
areas where feral goats are being controlled. If the aim is eradication then zero
immigration is one of the essential conditions for success (Bomford and O’Brien
1995). Forsyth et al. (2003) showed how eradication of feral goats in Mt. Egmont
National Park (North Island, New Zealand) would not be achieved if immigration (of
escapees) continued.
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Stakeholder perspectives
Landholders and goat meat producers resent regulations that impose greater costs on
them and/or prevent them from undertaking a potentially profitable activity. Hence,
stricter goat-fencing standards and exclusion zones are not supported by the majority
of landholders and meat goat producers. Abattoir managers and staff also perceive
such impositions as having a negative effect on the supply of goats, and hence the
profitability of their industry.
State agency staff perceive goat fencing standards as difficult to enforce. They
generally perceive exclusion zones as more practical, but wonder how many situations
they would apply to (i.e., there are few goat-free areas remaining within their
jurisdictions, and often those that do have goats nearby).
Information gaps
There is no information on the causes and frequency of events that lead to new
populations of feral goats, and so no indication on how managers might proactively or
reactively deal with these new populations. The sort of information that should be
collected, probably by sampling current edge-of-range or regions includes:
• Monitoring the edge of known ranges of feral populations to measure
rates of spread.
• Recording the proportion of goats with ear-tags or marks that are killed
or caught from feral populations adjacent to domestic herds.
• Recording the number of new herds in a region that are clearly from
illegal releases and in situ abandonment of domestic herds.
This information would be useful in determining how managers should best spend
their money preventing the establishment of new populations. Modelling would
generate quantitative estimates of the minimum distances adjacent to goat-free
conservation areas in which goat farming should be prohibited.
Solutions
Broadly, the solution imposed on landholders wanting to hold goats should be
proportional to the risk. For example, the Animal and Plant Control Commission
(South Australia) has suggested some risk factors to decide on how far from priority
goat-free areas domestic goats should be permitted and/or what standard of fencing
should be required.
Broad areas could be defined in which goats cannot be farmed (termed ‘exclusion
zones’). Exclusion zones have been defined for deer farming in deer-free parts of New
Zealand (Department of Conservation 2001), and for feral goats in parts of South
Australia.
All fences eventually fail and goats will inevitably escape. Management should
reduce this risk to a minimum and plan to deal with escapees when they occur. For
example, in Northland, New Zealand, 30% of escapes of deer from farms were caused
by human error (e.g., gates left open), 30% by ‘acts of God’ (e.g., storm damage to
fences), and the rest because the fences were always inadequate (Fraser et al. 2003).
Reactive management (surveillance and control) would be better for the 60% that
were ‘accidents’ and proactive management (enforcing fencing standards) for the
remaining 40% of escape events.
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Recommendations
• State agencies should consider how to impose legal restrictions on the holding of
domestic goats and for standards of management where they are permitted, but
these should be commensurate with the risk such enterprises pose to the public
good both in situ and on adjacent lands.
• Eradication of some escapees/new herds may be both possible and desirable.
4.7.2 Lack of information on current management chosen by landholders
Policy issue
Management decisions on commercial harvesting are made at a property level under
most State legislations, at least in the pastoral rangelands. The efficacy of any
legislation or policy that attempts to change landholders’ behaviour with respect to
commercial harvesting remains unknown.
Stakeholder perspectives
Care would need to be taken in any survey to divorce responses from landholders
from any individual regulatory responses from agencies to ensure unbiased responses.
Information gaps
There is no information on the proportions (or spatial adjacencies) of landholders who
may use commercial harvesting as a pest control tool, take occasional large harvests
when they need cash, maximise profits from annual harvests, or hold goats as weed
control agents and harvest only the excess. This lack means that it would be difficult
to assess the effectiveness, in terms of changed behaviour of landholders, of any
changes in legislation or policy.
Solutions
From a biodiversity conservation perspective, the issue would be how to encourage
more landholders towards ‘harvesting for pest control’ without compromising the
industry, i.e., more regional collaboration would be required to maintain the total
harvest. From the industrys’ perspective, it would provide information on how they
might motivate and organise landholders to harvest more goats.
Recommendations
• States should encourage landowners who are not commercially harvesting feral
goats to do so by promoting its financial benefits and noting tax incentives
available for investment in infrastructure to capture goats.
• A costed strategy with options for further action should be developed for use by
landowners that wish to use commercial harvesting as the initial step to control
feral goats as pests.
• That landholders and leaseholders be surveyed to ascertain their current
management aims and practices with respect to feral goat harvesting. We note
that the recent NSW survey (West and Saunders 2003) had a different purpose
(distribution and density of pests) and was done at a regional scale of Rural Lands
Protection Boards and State agencies, rather than at a property scale where the
purpose would be to sample current management practices.
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4.7.3 Relationships between livestock stocking rates and biodiversity, and how
management can achieve the best biodiversity outcomes
Policy issues
From a biodiversity conservation perspective, the objective of feral goat management
is to minimise adverse impacts on biodiversity and ecological processes. In some
places, feral goats are but one of many factors that may act synergestically to impact
on biodiversity and ecosystems. For example, feral goats are often sympatric with one
or more other herbivores (e.g., rabbits, macropods, feral pigs, and domestic sheep),
and removal of feral goats may not lead to any improvement in biodiversity or
ecosystem processes due to compensatory responses from the other species (sensu
Coomes et al. 2003). Similarly, abiotic factors (e.g., rainfall and fire) may also be
important. Hence, just because feral goat numbers are reduced by commercial
harvesting it cannot be assumed that the overall threat to biodiversity and ecosystem
processes has been reduced, particularly for preferred plant species.
It is also unclear to what extent commercial harvesting will reduce the abundance of
feral goat populations. Because the rate of increase of feral goats is well above the
discount rates, harvesters should not be expected to eradicate a goat population on
commercial grounds (see May 1976). Moreover, many areas are too inaccessible or
rugged, or have too few feral goats, to be profitably commercially harvested at the
prices offered. In Queensland, commercial harvesting reduced the abundance of goats
at the property level, but not at larger scales (Thompson et al. 1998). Since the
relationships between the density of feral goats and their impacts on biodiversity are
unknown, it is uncertain how often commercial harvesting reduces the abundance of
feral goats such that conservation benefits are achieved.
Agencies should not see commercial harvesting as removing the need for agencyfunded goat control. The scant available data suggest that commercial harvesting, at
least within the range of prices offered over the last 20 years, has not reduced
densities over large areas and that conservation benefits may not have accrued.
However, we emphasise the lack of data concerning the relationship between goat
densities and conservation benefits.
None of the State agencies controlling feral goats on private and leasehold land
attempt to recover their costs from the landholder or leaseholder. We believe that if
the costs of feral goat control were imposed on the landholder or leaseholder, then
commercial harvesting would become a far more important mechanism for controlling
feral goats than is currently the case. This is because commercial harvesting allows
the recovery of some or all of the costs of control. We therefore believe that feral
goats should be brought under the rules governing domestic livestock on private and
leasehold lands. This has the advantage, at least in some areas, of enforcing goat
control when maximum allowable stocking densities are exceeded and/or when
rangeland condition declines.
A related policy issue is whether there will be a long-term change towards higher
densities of goats in rangelands through increased husbandry? (i.e., a switch from
lower densities of feral goats to higher densities of managed goats). The biodiversity
outcomes of such a switch are unclear, and will likely depend on changes in the
abundance of other herbivores (e.g., sheep and kangaroos), and abiotic factors.
67
Stakeholder perspectives
Landholders do not want to directly fund the costs of monitoring, with most claiming
that they already manage rangeland condition through either casual observation and/or
(in a few cases) permanent monitoring sites (e.g., photopoints, pasture biomass and
species composition).
Landholders also do not want to pay the costs of feral goat control on their land,
except when they themselves profit from the exercise (i.e., can harvest and sell them
at a profit; Agri-Focus Pty Ltd undated b). This issue is highlighted in Western
Australia, where a largely State-funded feral goat control program operated between
1991 and 1999. The program ran in a period of low prices for feral goats, but was
discontinued due to landholder pressure to harvest goats themselves when goat prices
increased again.
The State agencies that administer pastoral leases appear to recognise the need for
property-based quantitative estimates of rangeland condition, but baulk at the cost of
such a program.
Researchers perceive this as a good way to link the management of goats with
rangeland condition and biodiversity condition. They see opportunities for research to
inform the process, but wonder about the difficulty of interpreting large amounts of
data that may reveal different trends for different rangeland components.
Landholders consider that they are adequately enforcing stocking densities that lead to
sustained or improved rangeland condition. They perceive that the imposition of
stocking rates could affect the profitability of their businesses.
The State agencies that administer pastoral leases are concerned that the enforcement
of stocking densities will lead to a poorer relationship with many leaseholders. The
agencies are concerned that some leases may become unprofitable if ecologicallybased stocking densities are enforced. There is also the issue of capacity to deal with
the increased workload that would be involved.
Solutions
• Monitoring of biodiversity on pastoral leases
A requirement of management on many pastoral leases (e.g., in Western Australia) is
the regular monitoring of ‘rangeland condition’ by the agency administering the
leases. ‘Biodiversity’ needs to be one aspect of such monitoring. Trends in
biodiversity, as revealed by monitoring, should be a key driver of land management
throughout Australia.
• Enforcement of stocking rate rules
On private and leasehold properties, stocking rates should be specified in terms of
both managed and unmanaged livestock. Under this approach, domestic goats would
be ‘managed’, and feral goats ‘unmanaged’, but the arbitrary distinction (in terms of
biodiversity outcomes) is removed. Managing stocking densities would then be the
responsibility of the landholder/leaseholder. Shifting the cost of control from the
taxpayer to the landholder/ leaseholder would increase the number of properties where
goats are commercially harvested. This approach was also recommended by Cook
(1995).
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The agencies administering pastoral leases in Western Australia have the power to
enforce changes in stocking densities when rangeland condition declines. However,
this appears to be seldom enforced, and we are unsure if this is because trends in
rangeland condition are not known with a great degree of certainty, or whether the
agency does not wish to antagonise the leaseholder. Clearly, this ability to enforce
stocking densities to modify rangeland condition is likely to impact on biodiversity
and ecosystem processes, and leaseholders may be able to use commercial harvesting
to reduce the abundance of goats. Failure to comply with necessary reductions in
density should result in the landholder being billed for the full cost of control. This
would lead to an increase in the number of properties from which feral goats are
commercially harvested.
Information gaps
Understanding the relationships between rangeland condition, biodiversity and
herbivore densities (Hone 1994) is the key to managing the impacts of feral goats.
However, research is required on this topic.
It is unclear how the various rangeland condition indices relate to biodiversity and
ecosystem processes, and how rigorously the data are collected, collated and analysed.
Given that these data are all that are available in large parts of Australia, we believe
that their collection, analysis and interpretation needs to be more transparent.
There is considerable interest in the use of goats for weed control in some parts of
Australia. However, there is no information on what densities are required to achieve
different weed abundance outcomes. Trials should be conducted to assess the
environmental benefits and costs of goats as weed controllers – we suggest doing this
in areas where the weeds are exotic species, such as the eastern rangelands of New
South Wales.
As goats tend to consume more woody material and less grass than sheep (at least in
some situations), there is a need to understand the implications of substituting goats
for sheep in different rangeland conditions. Such work should assess the relative
profitability and impacts of managed sheep and goats. There are opportunities for
conducting such research on pastoral properties that actively manage both species.
The wide variation in the management strategies applied to feral goats by landholders
could be usefully employed in an adaptive experimental management approach to
understanding the biodiversity benefits of different commercial harvesting strategies.
It is unfeasible to attempt to document these relationships in every place and at every
time, so the best approach is to identify the general forms of these relationships in a
well designed experiment, and to model the effects of other factors (e.g., soil fertlity,
drainage, other herbivores, etc) on these relationships. We see this as the best way to
extrapolate results from one experiment to other places/times. It must be recognised
that this research should be long-term (i.e., mirror the life-histories of the species
likely to be impacted). Because of the high costs of conducting long-term
experiments, the area(s) selected for such work need to be carefully chosen. We
recommend that the usefulness of current rangeland condition monitoring systems for
monitoring native biodiversity be evaluated within such a project.
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Recommendations
• Laws to bring feral goats (where goats are permitted) under ‘stocking rate’ rules
rather than ‘declared pests’ rules on leased and private land may provide better
outcomes but only if they are enforced and the effects monitored.
• Landowners and leaseholders in the pastoral rangelands should be surveyed to
ascertain their views on feral goats and their management intentions (as resources,
pests, weed control agents etc) for goats on their land.
• The benefits and costs to biodiversity of maintaining high densities of goats to
manage exotic weeds should be determined experimentally.
5. Summary of Key Recommendations
1. The Department of the Environment and Heritage and State conservation agencies
should prioritise where they need to actively control goats independent of where
commercial harvesting occurs.
2. States should encourage landowners who are not commercially harvesting feral
goats to do so by promoting its financial benefits and noting tax incentives
available for investment in infrastructure to capture goats.
3. A costed strategy with options for further action should be developed for use by
landowners who wish to use commercial harvesting as the initial step to control
feral goats as pests.
4. Future amendments to State ‘national park’ legislation should clarify the
unwanted pest status of feral goats on lands in protected tenures, partly to avoid
potential contradictory legal definitions of feral goats as actual or potential
declared pests and as game animals.
5. State agencies should consider how to impose legal restrictions on the holding of
domestic goats and for standards of management where they are permitted, but
these should be commensurate with the risk such enterprises pose to the public
good both in situ and on adjacent lands.
6. Laws to bring feral goats (where goats are permitted) under ‘stocking rate’ rules
rather than ‘declared pests’ rules on leased and private land may provide better
outcomes, but only if they are enforced and the effects monitored.
7. Landowners and leaseholders in the pastoral rangelands should be surveyed to
ascertain their views on feral goats and their consequent management intentions
(e.g., as resources, pests and weed control agents) for goats on their land.
8. The relationships between feral goat (and other herbivore) densities and
biodiversity should be investigated at sites under different management strategies.
9. The benefits and costs to biodiversity of maintaining high densities of goats to
manage exotic weeds should be determined experimentally.
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6. Acknowledgements
We thank the following people for providing information that was used in this report:
Bob Adamson (Pastoralists and Grazers Association, Western Australia), Vic Bates
(Southern Game Meat), Trevor Blight (Pastoral Lands Board, Western Australia),
Mary Bomford (Bureau of Rural Sciences), Tim Clancy (Arthur Rylah Institute for
Environmental Research), Don Clements (Geraldton Meat Exporters), P. Day (Safe
Foods New South Wales), Ashley Dowden (‘Challa’, Western Australia), Piers
Dumaresq (Meat & Livestock Australia), Peter Fleming (New South Wales
Agriculture), David Franks (AQIS), Quentin Hart (Bureau of Rural Sciences), Bob
Henzell (Animal and Plant Control Commission, South Australia),
Kim Holzner (Meat & Livestock Australia), Tim Johnson (Agriculture West
Australia), Brian Lloyd (Pastoral Lands Board, Western Australia), David Mitchell
(Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Australia), Jim Mitchell
(Department of Natural Resources and Mines, Queensland), Michael Mulligan
(Southern Game Meat), Caren Omachen (Department of Primary Industry, Victoria),
Greg Pickles (Department of Agriculture, Western Australia), Edgar Richardson
(Pastoralists and Grazers Association, Western Australia), Steve Roberts (AQIS),
Glen Saunders (New South Wales Agriculture), Russell Schultz (SafeFoods
Queensland), Scott Sharman (Meat & Livestock Australia), Allan Sheridan (AQIS),
Paul Smith (AQIS), Peter Stinson (Livecorp), Simone Tolson (AQIS), Rod Williams
(Department of Agriculture, Western Australia), and Andrew Woolnough
(Department of Agriculture, Western Australia). We especially thank Ashley and
Debbie Dowden (‘Challa’, Western Australia) for their hospitality. Marnie Collins
and Ian Gordon (Statistical Consulting Centre, University of Melbourne) assisted with
analyses. Eve McDonald-Madden produced most of the maps and Luke Einoder
patiently summarised large tables of export/import statistics. Comments by Andrew
Woolnough, Greg Pickles, Peter Fleming, Damian McRae, Jonathan Miller, and Bob
Henzell improved this report.
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