THE Wild Goat Conservation Group have vowed to keep on fighting to protect the goats on the Langholm Moor after comments received in response to a petition said the Scottish Government had no plans to give the animals protected status.
Goats have roamed the windswept mountains, exposed hills and remote places of Scotland for centuries.
But, earlier this year, one long-established herd, hefted to the 30,000 acres of Langholm and Newcastleton Hills in southern Scotland entered the limelight when Oxygen Conservation, a company that has bought 13,000 acres of this moorland habitat, began a legal cull.
A local outcry followed, demanding that the company show restraint.
Environmental campaigner Kenneth Moffatt drew up a petition calling on the Scottish Government to grant protected status to the goats.
His petition was given the ‘go ahead’ and, as Public Petition PE2151, is still running, having amassed over 12,000 signatures to date.
Mr Moffatt said: “These numbers are very significant, this petition has the largest signing of any Scottish Parliament public petition currently on the go.”
Although the petition will be considered by a cross parliamentary committee as early as September, the Scottish Government recently submitted its comments to that committee.
They acknowledged that wild goats are of cultural and historical significance, providing wildlife watching opportunities and supporting wildlife tourism. They also state that wild goats can bring positive benefits to biodiversity.
However, their conclusion stated ‘the Scottish Government currently has no plans to provide full legal protected status for primitive goats, or feral goats as they are more commonly known … they are an invasive non-native species that can cause damage to the natural environment and forestry interests’.
The conservation group say that the goats have been assessed by the British Primitive Goat Research Group as conforming to the hardy, primitive landrace type that developed from animals brought to the British Isles in the Stone Age by early nomadic herds’ people.
Dr Shirley Goodyer, of the research group, explained that this makes this particular herd both biologically and culturally significant.
Commenting on the Scottish Government`s statement about the public petition, David Braithwaite, chairman of The Wild Goat Conservation Group, said: “Yet again the government is refusing to accept that wild goats have a future in Scotland.
“They are obsessed with referring to them as ‘feral’’, a downgrading and redundant term given that wild goats have become fully naturalised and are part of the ecosystems where they have co-existed alongside the other upland wildlife for centuries.
“Government officials in nature conservation and forestry appear terrified that Scotland will become overrun by wild goats and liken the situation to that of wild deer.
“They are confused; it is broadly agreed that the Scottish wild deer population has doubled since 1990 to approximately one million today.
“In that same period, the Scottish wild goat population has not increased from a mere 3500 in total, indeed, it may have been in decline.”
Mr Braithwaite added: “Herds have become isolated and fragmented, largely due to culling pressure from forestry interests.
“We know that of the 152 Scottish herds of wild goats in the historical record, more than half (78), had become extinct by 1972.
“We believe that there are very few remaining today that are truly of the ancient type such as the Langholm and Newcastleton Hills population. There is far too little known about the biology of this nationally significant herd to be culling them willy-nilly.
“Wild goats have no legal protection in Scotland; it is critically important therefore that this herd is recognised and granted protected status by the Scottish Government before it is reduced to a number from which it cannot recover.
“Scotland must act to protect these engaging and charismatic creatures before it is too late, and we repent at leisure.
“I am thrilled that so many people are standing up for wild goats and signing this important petition. It is sending a huge message of support for their future to Scotland’s decision makers.”
