Goats going, pest-free Great Barrier in sight

Auckland regional managers are preparing to celebrate the elimination of goats on Great Barrier Island - and are looking to make the island pest-free.

Regional council biosecurity manager Jack Craw said yesterday that the island's wild goat population had been reduced over the past eight years from "in the thousands" to no more than one or two, and probably none.

"It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that there's a goat or two there, but it's looking a better than even chance [that there are none]," he said.

The council has released 16 neutered "sentinel goats" in a grid pattern at the southern end of the island, expecting that if there are any wild goats they will link up with the sentinels. It sent a contractor to look for any signs of wild goats last year.

"He saw nothing but he did find a track or footprints of a small goat. It may have been one of the sentinel goats but he fears it may not have been," Mr Craw said. "We will know by the end of February."

He said it was time to "dream big" about making Great Barrier, New Zealand's fourth-biggest island, pest-free.

Eliminating thousands of wild cats, rabbits and rats would cost $5 million to $6 million. But he said the benefits for conservation and "eco-tourism" would be vast.

"It's a unique place on the planet," he said.

The island and nearby Little Barrier have the world's biggest population of the rare brown teal duck or pateke. Stoats, weasels, ferrets and possums, which have devastated most of mainland New Zealand's native forest, have never reached Great Barrier, giving it the country's biggest possum-free forest.

Auckland Museum botanist Ewen Cameron said the relative lack of pests already gave the island's bush a "special status", making it relatively safe for ground-nesting birds.

The North Island robin was successfully reintroduced to the island last year after an absence of several decades.

The Conservation Department's Auckland regional conservator, Rob McCallum, said Great Barrier would be an "internationally significant" refuge if all remaining pests could be killed, making it safe for species not now found there such as the kiwi and kokako.

"It would be a hugely exciting conservation gain and a win-win because it would underpin an economic future for the island," he said.

The island's population of just under 1000 has been declining in recent years and only about six farmers still scratch a living out of patches of cleared land. Commercial fishing ended several years ago.

However, Mr Craw and Mr McCallum both said they would not contemplate eliminating the remaining pests unless the islanders supported it because it would mean quarantine requirements on all visitors and cargo.

Mr Craw said the two ferry operators already operated very good quarantine measures at both ends of the trip, and 50 boaties visiting the island over Christmas accepted free bait stations to catch any rats or other pests on their boats.

Great Barrier Community Board chairman Tony Bouzaid said his board voted about a year ago to support eliminating pests in principle, and found that 85 per cent of cat owners supported controls that would require spaying.

But board deputy chairwoman Helen O'Shea, who runs a farm with her husband, Michael, said there would be "far more important things" to do with $6 million. "It's not a priority over here. Our population is dwindling because there are no avenues of employment," she said.

"We who live here do everything in our power to look after endangered species at all times. But for me the human being comes first."

Eliminating pests

The last wild goats are being hunted down on Great Barrier Island.

Stoats, weasels, ferrets and possums have never reached Great Barrier Island.

Ridding the island of wild cats, rabbits and rats would cost $5 million to $6 million.