Trap that really gets your goat

SMALL FARMS NETWORK - WINTER 2021 - INVASIVE SPECIES

By Liz O'Grady
Biosecurity Officer
P: 02 6051 2212 | M: 0427 362 703 | E: liz.ogrady@lls.nsw.gov.au

Periodically, feral goats move out from bushland onto adjoining agricultural and peri-urban areas and impact these environments. While goats compete for food with native fauna in bushland settings, threatening plants, animals and ecological communities, they’re also an agricultural pest that can carry disease and degrade farming (and peri-urban) land.

To minimise the goats’ impact on peri-urban communities, we’re trialling a small-scale trapping program in the Splitters Creek area, near Albury, using a modified pig-trapping system called Jager Pro.

This pilot program involves a 20m-diameter enclosure with a specialised remote-control gate system. The trap is set up where the goats have been accessing a feed station watched by 4G monitoring cameras. The trap is left open, allowing goats to free feed inside, which makes them feel comfortable to enter. The motion-triggered camera sends photos to staff in real time.

The unique part of the trial is the gate-operating system. Once the enclosure has enough goats inside, staff can trigger the 2.4m drop-down trap gate with a text message from a mobile phone to the site camera.

This technique has allowed staff to trap, load and remove significant numbers of goats from the area. Proceeds from the capture and sale of feral goats are directed to the Splitters Creek Landcare Group.

For more information on this program, or our broader invasive species control programs, call our Invasive Species team on 02 6051 2200 (Albury), 03 5881 9900 (Deniliquin) or 03 5886 2100 (Jerilderie).