Arapawa goats get a second chance

Gordon Copeland
Gordon Copeland
Arapawa goats have been given a second chance, thanks to an Independent MP's complaint.

Gordon Copeland attempted to highlight the plight of the Marlborough Sounds goats in the House earlier this month.

He used one of his rare allotments of questions to quiz Conservation Minister Steve Chadwick over plans to cull the goats because her officials believed they were an introduced pest that ate native plants.

Mr Copeland took issue with this, but his attempts to explain the importance of the goats evoked much humorous bleating from MPs around the House.

Now, goat lovers have been given more time to save the goats living on Arapawa Island Scenic Reserve.

Department of Conservation Sounds area manager Roy Grose said goat advocates would be given until September 1 to take goats away, provided they first came up with an acceptable capture plan.

"Our policy is not to exterminate all Arapawa goats on the island but to control them to low levels on the reserve,'' he said.

Mr Grose said goat advocates would be allowed to capture and remove the goats, provided they met certain conditions.

These included providing an acceptable capture plan by April 30.

Arapawa goat campaigner Betty Rowe said she was pleased with the delay.

"We'd have to see how we could move them through dense bush. It would not be an easy job . . . I did this many years ago back in the 1970s but I was a young woman. I am nearly 77 now.''

Mr Copeland said in a statement he was meeting Ms Chadwick to discuss the situation in early April.

"I believe it is possible both to preserve a beautiful part of our natural history [the goats] and at the same time the flora and fauna on that island. Having said that, regeneration of native vegetation is flourishing on Arapawa Island and it needs to be determined whether the proposed goat cull is justified or is just policy based on the old dogma of hating so-called introduced species".

Mr Copeland said he had been "actively promoting'' the recognition of wild animals such as deer, chamois and tahr.

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