THE "Judas goats" will be key players in the kill. The seven feral goats wearing the colourful collars will not know it, but they will be helping the shooters rather than the old goats when a landmark aerial shooting program commences in the Mallee next month.
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Over four days, highly trained shooters will shoot feral goats from a helicopter flying at low altitude over the Murray Sunset National Park.
The park's feral goat population numbers in the thousands, and the goats are damaging vulnerable native vegetation and preventing regeneration. Parks Victoria says goats are stripping Buloke trees, and munching on Belah and Slender Cypress-pines and other species.
The goats are also eating native grasses, compacting the soil and increasing the risk of erosion. The robust herbivores can stand up high on their hind legs to reach into trees, climb trees and are damaging the habitat of native species like the Major Mitchell Cockatoo and Malleefowl. It will be impossible to kill all of the goats in the park in just four days, but project manager Brendan Rodgers believes that hundreds of goats will be killed.
But as the shooters fly over a 500,000-hectare section of the massive park where the shooting will take place, the crosshairs will not be trained on the "Judas goats". These goats have been fitted with collars carrying satellite tracking devices over recent months.
Mr Rodgers says it is in the nature of the goats to "mob up" into groups, sometimes as large as 40 or 50. So the hope is that the "Judas goats" will lead the hunters to large numbers of goats, which will make shooting easier.
The "Judas goats" will not be shot; they will remain in the park and keep mobbing up with other goats sometime after a helicopter shooting run.
Parks Victoria has hired an experienced interstate shooting team to conduct the program, the first of its kind in a Victorian national park. "Aerial shooting has been used successfully in other states for many years," Mr Rodgers said.
A "control area" in the park of about 500,000 hectares will be closed during the shooting. Research work done in this area three years ago estimated that this area had a feral goat population of 1.4 goats per square kilometre.
The vast national park in the state's north west corner is about 666,000 hectares, making it Victoria's biggest. It stretches for about 100km from east to west, and about 50km north south.
"A helicopter survey in 2012 estimated there were over 8000 goats in the park, and, if left unchecked, the population will increase at an alarming rate. So it's important we control feral goats to minimise environmental damage to the park and on neighbouring properties," Mr Rodgers said.
Female feral goats reach sexual maturity about six months of age and can give birth to multiple kids.
They can have at least three pregnancies in a two-year period, so their population can grow rapidly if not controlled. - The Age
