Untitled

Press, 10 January 1986, Page 14

By

DERRICK ROONEY

Projected increases during the next few years in goat and deer farming on Banks Peninsula may put several native plant communities or species at risk and may also pose a threat to some native birds, according to a Christchurch freelance botanist, Mr Hugh Wilson. Goats which have escaped from farms have already caused severe localised damage in several areas, says Mr Wilson. He has spent most of the last three summers working on a privately-sponsored botanical survey of the Peninsula and Port Hills.

Farmers who plan to run goats should be made aware of their potential ecological effect and should manage them accordingly, he adds.

Goats are more agile and aggressive browsers than sheep and can devastate vulnerable plant communities in steep, rocky areas that sheep cannot reach, Mr Wilson says. Though the animals have

been introduced on many hillcountry properties to control scrub weeds such as gorse, broom, and bracken, these plants are not very palatable and take second place in the goat diet where native species such as broadleaf and hebes are available.

Peninsula plants listed by Mr Wilson as vulnerable to goat browsing include tree ferns (once abundant but now localised on the Peninsula), native aniseeds (now rare or absent, except on inaccaessible bluffs, because of grazing), astelia (bush lily), other understorey plants, and palatable shrubby species such as red matipo, broadleaf, and olearia. Banks Peninsula endemics such as Hebe lavaudiana and Celmisia macauii are also potentially at risk. While trees such as kowhai and ribbonwoods were well able to regenerate under grazing by sheep, they could not do so when exposed to goat browsing.

Unfortunately, says Mr Wilson, the impact of goat browsing is not felt solely by the flora. Browsing upsets the balance of the whole community of plants, insects, and birds. Bush birds such as bellbirds and brown creepers are particularly vulnerable to modification of their habitat.

He emphasises that he is not an opponent of goat farming. “It is evident that goat farming and deer farming are booming on the Peninsula and that the number of these animals on farms will continue to grow rapidly in the next few years. I would just like to make the point that in the management of these animals their potential to damage the environment should be recognised and allowed for.”

Hugh Wilson is well known as a field botanist who has worked on

contract for a number of private and public agencies. He is the author of field guides to the plants of Stewart Island and the Mt Cook National Park, and has a Banks Peninsula volume in preparation. The results of the survey of the peninsula, when completed in two years time, will be made available to the D.S.I.R. Botany Division and the Lands and Survey Department. Clear evidence of the damage that can be inflicted by goats can be seen just off the Summit Road in the Port Hills, on a block of land overlooking Governors Bay. The block, known as the “O’Farrell block,” is dominated by a steep, rocky gully clad with bush, including a wide variety of small trees and shrubs in the upper section and strongly regenerating matai lower down.

The bush is highly regarded for its diversity, and the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust is keen to secure an open-space covenant over it, to ensure that it is preserved, according to the trust’s Christchurch representative, Dr lan Blair.

However, the bush is apparently at risk from a flock of goats that are enjoying free grazing on its perimeter and, in places, inside the canopy as well. Extensive damage has occurred to some olearia, broadleaf, hebe and matipo, and inside the bush a group of tree ferns has been chomped. The land was formerly owned by a bankrupt property developer,'but, since the Official Assignee disclaimed it, has reverted to the mortgagees, one of whom said this week that no-one had been given permission to graze the land. However, a flock of 11 goats was roaming at large on the land this week.

Damage to bush by goats has ’ also been reported by the owner of .7 a neighbouring block, Mr A. Kuyf, of Chertsey.

Mr Kuyf, who runs an engineering business manufacturing farm , silos, bought his block with the J? intention of retiring to it in a few * months time, and he said this week that he was upset by the intrusion of goats because he was very "keen to preserve his 2ha of native bush. Mr Kuyf has entered negotiations with the QEII Trust for a covenant over the bush. <

He has been too busy with his engineering business to get up to see the land recently, but on his last visit there had been goats on ; it. -i

“I asked a neighbour about them, and he said they came from another property nearby,” Mr Kuyf says. “Their owner was supposed to take them away, but apparently hasn’t.”-