Goats a Major Menace On Mt. Egmont

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 266, 10 November 1945, Page 4

Goats a Major Menace On Mt. Egmont

The immense task confronting the Egmont National Park Board in eradii eating goats in the Egmont national - reserve was explained to a meeting ot ) the board at New' Plymouth by the i ranger, Mr. G. „G. Atkinson, in a com- - prehensivc report on his activities dur--3 tug the last two years. He refused tc 3 estimate the number of goats at presr ent on the mountain slopes, but he det dared the infested area to be about i 100,000 acres of difficult, rugged , country. 1 In addition to forest infestation the j higher open slopes of the mountain . were subjected to the depredations ol goats during the summer, and, because of the cone-shaped contour of the mountain, the goats found it an easy matter to travel to any part of the alpine slopes, thus leaving no part un affected. The alpine flora has suffered heavily and prickly Spaniard has been . reduced almost to tho point of extinc- . tion. The fact that ranunculi grow iu „ 1 many places inaccessible to the goat?, . j was the only thing that saved them 1 from a similar fato. The Kaitaki re- [ serve was also goat-infested though not jto any great degree. There were prob- ’ I ably fewer than 200 goats iu this re- ’ servo and the forest adjacent it. [j “I should not care to hazard a guess , of the number of goats still at large iu ‘ i the main reserve,” continued Mr. At- ! kinson. From 1935 up to the time ho , became an employee of the Board approximately 13,000 goats had been do.stroyed. With the help of honorary j rangers and friends he had accounted for a further 4507, making a total ot' j 17,507 destroyed since the occasion I when it was reported that not more than 2000 goats existed in the reservo and the goat situation had been greatly exaggerated. ‘‘ My purpose in referring to this misleading report is to show that it is impossible to estimate accurately the number of goats in an infested area as large as the park, and to emphasise that one could not exaggerate the potential menace of goats in the forest,” Mr. Atkinson continued. Of all the imported animals roaming in the forest and on the mountain, wild goats, iu his opinion, were the greatest menace in 1 the forests and on the mountain, and thus, indirectly, to the economy of tho country. Dealing with forest destruction and erosion, Mr. Atkinson said that throughout the goat-infested area tho forest damage was extensive and serious. There were areas where some species had been almost entirely wriped out. The parent trees—seed distributors—had been ring-barked and killed, and the seedlings browned off whenever . they appeared. As soon as the supply j of fertile seed lying on the forest floor I was exhausted, then that variety of jtree ceased to exist in the locality, and 1 redistribution of seed could only bo brought about by birds.