I am not disagreeing with your view Stuart, the problem is DoC have a one size fits all attitude. If they said that the goats on Arapawa Island were doing any damage that would be different but they aren't. They don't even know how many there are either so they aim to shoot first and count later. As you will know there are no roads on the island and very few visitors venture inland. Those that visit Betty Rowe's Sanctuary and do go into the hills tell her they see very few goats and that the undergrowth is thick and generating. Doesn't sound like a damaged environment to me. In any case the goats have only ever occupied a small pocket on this 17,000 acre island which IS their natural environment after over 200 yrs. Goats are browsers not grazers and nibble a little here and there. Hopefully some of the feral goats will be relocated, perhaps with more being exported to the UK and USA but to slaughter all on a whim doesn't sound like commonsense to me. And the support being generated around the globe would seem to agree. From what you say it sounds like humans have done the most damage. Perhaps a cull of them would be more appropriate? Sorry you feel a handful of off topic posts are spoiling your quest for canal knowledge. Judging by the quantity of mundane chit chat here maybe you should look elsewhere? I rest my case.
Cheers, Christine (Lover of Boats & Goats). --- In [email protected], "Stuart Crawford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I will be the first to agree that DOC can be both ignorant and arrogant in their actions. > 1080 poisoning is a classic example. However the call to maintain a population of goats > on Arapawa island is at least as ignorant and arrogant no matter how rare they may be. by > all means relocate them to their natural environment and try to bring them back from the > brink of extinction, but don't expect sympathy for their removal from their current > location. > > If indeed the only threatend species is a snail, it is because every other threatend species > has already been wiped out and has no way of being successfully re-introduced until the > goats are removed. > > Putting your example of how well your own goats have tidied an area in the UK shows just > how little you understand the New Zealand ecosystem. Before humans arrived here, the > only mammals where seals and bats. The entire country was covered in bush and full of > birdsong. Much of the East coast of the South Island was burnt off, partly in the hunting to > extinction of the Moa, by Moari. Something like half of New Zealands forests and a number > of bird species were destroyed before Europeans arrived. Since then in the past couple of > hundred years at most, half of the remaing native forest has been destroyed including > almost all of the virgin Kauri forests, not to mention many more bird species. > > What has caused the extinction and endangerment to so many native animals? two things. > Predation from the likes of people, rats, stoats, ferrets, pigs, cats, dogs and diseases, all > of which have been introduced (mostly from the nothern hemisphere). and the second > destructive force is loss of habitat, which has been caused by humans, possums, goats > and deer etc. To understand the destructive force of grazing animals to the New Zealand > forests you need to see what they look like in there natural state (which not even most > New Zealanders have seen) to fully appreciate the damage done. > > Given the combination of landmass size and human population size in both the North and > South Islands, the only feasible places to try and recover the endagered flora and fauna of > New Zealand and for New Zealand, before they too become extinct is on Islands which can > have introduced predators and grazing animals removed. The more islands we can use for > this purpose the better the chances are of reducing further extinctions here. And the > bigger the islands we can do this on the better we can maintain the genetic diversity which > is crucial to the long term survival of any species. > > This is my final reply to this topic, as my reason for joining this group was to learn about > the UK canal system. A subject to which I am almost totally ignorant of. > > Stuart.
