Petition to ban goat hunting.

Grizzly 45

Something got her goat alright!

Yasmin Fortune .Well known for enviromentalism in Wicklow.

One to watch out for.

https://www.change.org/p/department-of-agriculture-food-and-the-marine-ban-the-hunting-of-critically-endangered-old-irish-goats-and-award-them-rare-breed-status

MakersMark

Are feral goats really endangered in Ireland?

blackbox

Do people actually hunt goats?

Uinseann_16

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118369956#Comment_118369956

Yes they're a feral non native species

BorneTobyWilde

That's a lot of free meat roaming free.

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118369945#Comment_118369945

Nope!They breed like...well...goats!, and seeing they have crossbred with genuine domestic feral goat breeds, saying the old Irish goat is somehow an unblemished strain is utter rubbish.

slipperyox

I was asked to sign this petition personally. And like a lot of knee jerk reactors, I was about to.

But the sales pitch is flawed, or at least not honest.

To state an animal is "critically Endangered" is quite a statement.

As a pest controller, hunter for consumption, and a Hons degree Biologist, this is a shameful tactic.

However, if they use genetics to prove they are of a 5000 year old pure lineage, and not photos's of skulls carried on the backs of hunters to entice support, I will sign.

Otherwise, great harm is done to ALL biodiversity, when you use an IUCN term such as this unwarranted.

JP22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118375936#Comment_118375936

Nothing new there, the sales pitch is almost always flawed. Mostly it’s a mixture of mumbo-jumbo with some political speak thrown in for good measure. Oh, don’t forget the stats, where would we be without the stats folks, their stats are almost always out of date or wrong – both most of the time. Basically it’s a pile of horse-manure.

There are many environmentalists out there who believe certain species have to be controlled in certain situations but they are never mentioned or quoted by antis. I wonder why?

End of day, these folk are just plain anti’s, pick any subject/hobby you like, there is always someone/some group who is against it. Enough said……….

slipperyox

I would add, pest control fine by me, hunting for food, fine by me.

But trophy hunting a definite no. And the worst thing the hunting community needs from this minority.

Grizzly 45

Trophy hunting has its place... IF it is going back into keeping a breed sustainable and benefitting a local economy and creating some spinoff in employment etc. But in our case here, it's going into someone's bank account.

MakersMark

I was hoping that I'd be able to comment somewhere on the petition as to how impressive the trophy heads were.

patnor1011

If I will have to pay 1k for a pop it would have to be about half a ton specimen. Anything smaller for that price is just expensive barbecue.

slipperyox

If you take a man on the clapham omnibus, most are fine with pest control and hunting for eating. But more will be against trophy hunting.

Something to bear in mind when you entrench on a side for the good of our sport holistically.

And yes grizzly, trophy hunters can contribute more to conservation, but they are still spurned.

elperello

I was initially somewhat suspicious of political links to the petition but after some research (thanks to those who provided links) I don't believe there is any party behind it.

This link is on the petition page and worth a read - https://oldirishgoat.ie/

I will sign and let others make their own minds up.

crackcrack30

Isn't a pure kebab goat... isn't goat the most popular/ eaten meat on earth..

How is it (kid) prepared/ butchered & eaten? mostly mince? .... any good vids?

Grizzly 45

Butcher them out as you would any sheep/lamb. Plenty of recipes on google from all over the world on how to cook them.Everything from Jamacian goat head soup to goat kebabs& tacos. Better off with young goats, as they start getting a "herby" taste past 6 months and an older animal is rather pungent and a well-aquired taste.🤮

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118377442#Comment_118377442

"Clapham man" has about as much knowledge about the countryside and hunting, and the benefit of tourist hunting as I do about the Zodiac signs of those on Love island. He has been fed a diet of anti-gun and hunting for generations of BBC and MSM "country file" and Chris Packham,David Attenborough &Co to belive that there are two lions,3 deer, one blue whale, two foxes and a partridge in a pear tree left in the wild of Europe and Africa.J

So you are going to have an uphill struggle anyway trying to explain this difference to a mind poisoned by generations of the idea that hunting in any shape or form is a class issue reserved for Toffs and Horray Henrys who still can pop off to Africa to bag a few of the big 5 at the drop of a top hat. Indeed they are folks out there who can do it, but they pay handsomely for it and think nothing of dropping 400k plus to hunt the big 5 every year. That's a cash injection of over 5million in some local 3rd world economies like Zimbabwe for example, which pays a lot of wages for the local game wardens.Not to mind providing fresh meat for a whole village to a bunch of people who are suffering malnutrition. Or of course, said same animals could be poached for their trophies by poisoning water holes and wiping out herds for a pittance and a massive profit of unscrupulous ivory and animal parts dealers in China or Saudi.

For the rest of us mere mortals, an African hunting safari is an almost impossible dream or a once in a lifetime experience. So maybe we should point out to those like Clapham man without us or those with the money paying for it. There would be even less wildlife than there is now,and when did they see the antis and the spiky-haired mutant brigade ever put their hands in their pockets to fork out some of their dole money to pay some Zimbabwean game warden less than their months dole in a year's wages, to buy himself a new pair of boots to protect their wildlife they fawn about?

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118377793#Comment_118377793

I’m a traditional kebab is lamb. Abd giat is eaten around the world, but nowhere near the most popular in the world. Beef, pork and lamb are eaten in much larger amounts. And of course chicken.

Feisar

@Grizzly 45 "herby" 🤣, that's one way of putting it.

I presume this is a backlash from the press a few of our "outfitters" have gotten recently.

Feisar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118370519#Comment_118370519

Utter rubbish right however hard to argue when our aforementioned outfitters are using it as marketing shtick.

JPKeogh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118376285#Comment_118376285

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118375936#Comment_118375936

Not against hunting for food but that’s not what this is about, it’s about stopping selling trophy excursions to tourists & if you haven’t taken the time to find out that the goats DNA has been profiled & that it’s been with us 5k years & is distinct from the feral population that arrived in the 1900s then I don’t know what to tell ya. But it is!! And yeh there’s definitely hybrids out there but that doesn’t ignore the fact that the research is done & the untainted breed has been profiled & isolated & therefore requires protection to preserve it. So we don’t have thick idiots hunting them down for photos. It really really doesn’t take long to find out it IS critically endangered. Google it. Look up the rare breed conference & Old Irish Goat

5,000 yrs that’s a heritage issue. That’s the puck goat, the goat of the bodhrán, the one that saw us through the famine ..,the “patriot” whose organisation can’t spell hEireann correctly is actually talking utter shite.

JPKeogh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118369945#Comment_118369945

The Old Irish goat has been in Ireland 5,000 year, there were feral goats introduced in the 1900s - The Old Irish Goat is critically endangered the other feral goats are not. The hunters like do their best to confuse

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118443980#Comment_118443980

So tell us this? Where exactly is the main national herd of these pureblooded 5000-year-old interbred Irish goats in Ireland?Are they located in one point like the national herd of Red deer in Kerry? Be pretty simple then to say that hunting them in that area is prohibited? Or better still, capture all these old Irish goats out in the wild in the 25 and move them to a goat sanctuary someplace in Irelandideally suited where they can be then kept and properly maintained and culled when needed? And the hybrids can be hunted in the rest of the country? I'm sure UNESCO will throw you a few million quid of global funds for such a project if they are that critically endangered? After all they do this in Africa and the Amazon rainforest almost on a monthly basis?

Done a bit of digging around online. They are in Mulranny Co Mayo:

https://mulranny.ie/mulranny-old-irish-goats/

From the website:

"Sadly there are very few pure Old Irish Goats left in Ireland. Without intervention those that remain in Mulranny will be lost forever due to interbreeding with the British Alpine, Swiss Toggenburg and British Dairy Goats that share Mulranny Hill."

According to their Facebook page they have a breeding programme in Mulanny and some of the goats have been relocated to howth head UNESCO biosphere reserve in Dublin.

Also according to the FB page, these guys are helping out with the funding of this project:

https://m.facebook.com/WSIAClub/?__tn__=%2As-R

Here is an article about someone working on the project:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/18/old-irish-goats-return-to-county-dublin-to-protect-hills-from-wildfires?fbclid=IwAR1fNmpcbXAVJIbIOdW_EOOWN9v6bDoDebIbPkIJNnhyoSUQXPqmFhZgd1U

Fairly understandable that people would get annoyed at them being shot when so much time and money is being spent on preserving them.

Cass

MODERATOR WARNING.

Name calling, swearing, and general abusive behaviour is not tolerated.

Keep it civil or I'll remove people's ability to post.

Unverifiable or not, and of course any outright false, claims of membership to any party, group or organisation is irrelevant and not germane to hunting, hence to the hunting forum.

Keep on topic, not just on this thread but on this forum.

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118445490#Comment_118445490

Which is the obvious thing to do if they want to keep the breed pure. You have to isolate them and that they are on a UNESCO site. So now we need to sort out this thing with guided hunting providers here in Ireland. It's been a thorn in our sides for years.No point in blaming "the Furrniers" if it is Irish people offering the service and lining their own pockets, at the cost of the wildlife.

elperello

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22051512/

Podcast from Morning Ireland yesterday.

JPKeogh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118376169#Comment_118376169

Well it appears you were wrong I’ve just read that they were given Rare Breed status & officially are listed “at risk”. They’ve evidence the rare breed is being targeted. I’d rather they were shut down too, it’s just greedy marketing and it’s gonna make trouble for every other hunter.

Grizzly 45

Still a lot of "all hat and no cows!" as they say in Texas Being targeted..Proof, please?...Also, how are you going to know the difference between a purebred and a cross with a feral goat of domestic origin without a DNA test?

John_Rambo

The goats in Howth are part of a fire prevention project too. I live close by and have seen the fires and the cost of helicopter dropping massive buckets of water over the fires. From all the reports from the experts they seem to be the original older Irish breed.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119282247#Comment_119282247

I'm not being funny, but how do goats put out fire?

I wasn't aware forrect fires were an issue in the irish climate

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119364201#Comment_119364201

Gorse fires are very common in the countryside and where there's a lot of gorse. Crone Woods in Wicklow was on fire yesterday, a huge fire.

Historically Howth's heather and gorse was managed by livestock. That's changed now but the introduction of goats will hopefully manage the gorse and heather.

I didn't say they put out fires, but they graze fire breaks.

J.R.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119364201#Comment_119364201

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/dublin/herd-of-wild-goats-to-be-deployed-to-help-prevent-spread-of-gorse-fires-in-howth-40653451.html

...

Grizzly 45

25 goats? They would want 10 to 12 times that amount to start making a dent in the gorse and growth on Howth. It can take years for them[goats] to start landscaping a tract that big... That's if they don't fancy some change in diet and lunch down on someone's fine manicured garden in Howth,as goats are escape &evasion experts as anyone will tell you who has ever owned or had anything to do with them, the good people of Howth will want to make sure their fences are very stock proof to keep goats out.😆

John_Rambo

There are 42 goats in the breeding heard with 15 more males being introduced soon, not sure if you're aware of the eating powers of goats, you'll be amazed at how much 50 goats can get through in a few weeks.

So far, no fires that I know of & haven't heard of any problems with locals.

Grizzly 45

WELL aware of what they can eat and escape to and from, as we had a few of them on the farm when I grew up, where they preferred my mother's flowers and the vegetable patch to any briars and ivy they were employed to eat🤣. A 10-foot stone estate wall with a 6inch lip was nothing to these lads,they would walk along it no bother into a neighbour's farm,as we would walk along a pavement.

With 1500 acres of the Special Amenity Area,which I presume they will be based out of...? They are going to be the most obese goats in Ireland.😂

J.R.

They use a virtual fence to control where the goats roam...each goat has a GPS collar.

https://youtu.be/XROZJjaK2tU

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119368155#Comment_119368155

Well, it seems to be working out well. Was on the hill this morning and the goats are munching away, still no fires.

Grizzly 45

They use a virtual fence to control where the goats roam...each goat has a GPS collar.

I'm very curious as to how this will work, because either there has been a misunderstanding on what a GPS fence actually is? Or do they have some sort of deterrence device in the GPS collar to "persuade" the goats not to go past a certain point?IE a shock collar🤔which fIK is not something you can use on domestic stock under animal cruelty law?

Well, it seems to be working out well. Was on the hill this morning and the goats are munching away, still no fires.

Well , unless we get another 2/3 weeks of heat like on Monday and everything becomes paper dry, and by natural causes, and/or your resident firebug doesn't decide to visit and set the place ablaze, you won't have fires. But fatter goats.😁

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119369997#Comment_119369997

Last year we'd a big fire on the hill that took buckets and buckets of helicopter water to douse during a much shorter dry spell with much less intense heat. So, as much as you don't like the project, who it involves, where it is and what you think of the "good people of Howth" it seems to be working.

That's a good thing.

JP22

Maybe its something like this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethrushe/2018/10/29/europes-first-virtual-goat-fence-is-on-the-market/?sh=5b8d688b5d97

kunekunesika

The goats are happy, the risk of fires and their severity is reduced. The goat minders and Sunday strollers are happy. Only losers are the helicopter companies, which I feel were never really set up to deal with fires. All we need now is howth goat cheese with kid and chips for the fancy restaurants on the pier.... Circular economy all the way

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119370447#Comment_119370447

I quite frankly dont give a toss about Howth,and the goats up there or whether you have 5,50 or 50,000 of them in that your utterly overpriced real estate ,or whether it is eaten by goats or burns to the ground every year .

If you want to get rid of gorse properly it involves four things,none of which people like doing.(1)Roundup weed killer (2)physical work (3)spending money(4)being enviromentally unfriendly,but actually being enviromentally friendly in the long run by doing controlled burning.

If you want 100,000old irish goats running about ,you are welcome to them.Leave the rest of us to get on with controlling the hybrids and ferals in the rest of the country.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119371581#Comment_119371581

Lol! for someone that doesn't give a toss about Howth, the goats and how well it's working you're doing a lot of posting about the situation.

I'll leave you to your chemicals, burning & machinery, we'll continue doing it right. The old way 😉

*edit.. fair comment, I forgot, there was machinery used to create fire breaks on the hill, the goats will maintain them.

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119371245#Comment_119371245

Excellent idea!! Goats cheese.

It wasn't a helicopter company, it was the army... so it's actually a saving for the tax payer.

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119372522#Comment_119372522

Seeing that I started the thread...I might be allowed to comment on it???

ROTFLMAO. There was/is a reason people who live in the country and have to make a living off their land use "the old way" as you describe it and cant wait/or play at rich people or Eco fascist's follies in their little enclave. We shall wait and see how this plays out in the next few months and years.

Grizzly 45

Excellent idea!! Goats cheese.

Townies for yer!🤣🙄

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119374950#Comment_119374950

Sneer & scoff away Grizzly, but Irish produced goats cheese like St. Tola in Clare and Ardsallagh in Cork are two of the finest in the country. Since the 1970’s revival of farmhouse cheesemaking Ireland has become a noted producer. There's no reason why our goats in co. Dublin can't produce cheese, we have some of the largest and most successful farms here.

Reminds me of Geoff Read being laughed out of it and being branded a "townie" when he came up with Ballygowan bottled water.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119364615#Comment_119364615

To be clear, I was being facetious. Didn’t actually think goats were putting out fire.

but didn’t think they were as big an issue in such a small geographical area. good to know.

Grizzly 45

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119375512#Comment_119375512

This is pure comedy gold!!!!🤣🤣

You have kind of forgotten how your goat's cheese will arrive in your boutique Fromagiere. You have to get it out of the goat first, once or twice a day,7 days a week for about 5 months...Are you going to go off up Howth hill to milk the Nannies twice a day and bring the milk back? What are you going to feed the kids with that you want to grow up for fire fighting duty if you are taking the nanny's milk? That's if they [the organisation running this and the goats themselves] even let you near this future wild herd...Clue "Wild" IOW they won't be like tame domestic goats who are used to being handled and milked, or the project will want this extra work of managing the herd.

Do you have someone with a cheese making set up in Howth, all certified to food standards and just waiting for milk from this exclusive herd, and of course, a daily regular supply can be guaranteed to supply the market? Fair dues if you do, but if they are that established they already have a supplier and won't need the milk from the herd.Which BTW would have to be managed then as a domestic herd of cattle and be subject to the same routine of vaccinations and dosage as laid down by the Dept of Agriculture. You can have either a feral herd of goats doing firefighting duties,or you can have a domestic herd providing milk. Not both in this case.

Water is a bit easier to get than goats milk TBH,and as PT Barnum said about the birth rate of suckers who want to pay for bottled water, in this case....

John_Rambo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376432#Comment_119376432

Thanks so much for the insight. Your interest in the herd has been very educational.