Calls are being made to relocate a herd of around 40 wild goats in the mid-Kerry area that have reportedly caused road accidents and damaged property and silage ground.
Local Kerry county councillor John Francis Flynn told Agriland that he has been getting “a lot” of calls in recent months from residents in the Curraheen area, which is located between Killorglin and Glenbeigh.
The Fianna Fáil representative said that the animals have caused several accidents on the main Ring of Kerry road (N70).
The wild goats can be viewed in the video below.
“Over the last three or four weeks, there has been at least five crashes in the area because of goats; people coming around the bend and there’s goats out on the road,” Flynn said.
“The local school had to put up a fence around their perimeter and householders have had to do the same, at a huge cost to them.
“I must have at least 20 or 25 people onto me in that area where the goats are coming down and going in around their houses and eating their hedges.
“I have also had a number of local farmers contact me where they would have fields of silage closed off and the goats are breaking in and eating the grass. It’s a tough time on farmers and they can’t afford to be losing fields of silage,” the councillor added.
Wild goats
Flynn said that the goats may have originally been from a domestic herd but have since become wild.
“No one seems to be responsible for them. Kerry County Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) have said that they are not responsible. So what do we do only try and sort it out ourselves?” he explained.
“I don’t think that there is a need to cull these goats but move them to a safer part of the county.
“What we are looking at is relocating them to a more rural area that would be more suitable for them and that they wouldn’t be a danger to the public,” he said.
Flynn said that a man in Co. Cork has offered to take the animals and relocate them on an island where he already keeps wild goats.
It seems that the Curraheen area is not the only part of the county where wild goats are an issue.
The councillor said that another herd of around 60 animals is also causing damage in the Castlemaine area.