Saba News News and Information from Saba Island, Dutch Caribbean
The site BES Reporter reports that the Public Entity St. Eustatius continues its efforts to remove roaming animals from the public spaces and nature areas. Animals removed are brought to the slaughterhouse for slaughtering and processing. The owners of animals are involved in the removal process and the setting up of farms and holding areas. In addition, animal owners of the goats in the Boven National park are since last year removing their goats in this area, in a joint effort with the Agricultural Desk (former LVV).
Between October 2020 and the end of May 2021 a total of 835 animals were slaughtered of which mostly goats (516), but also sheep (185), pigs (75) and cows (59).
Read the full article HERE.
The reproduction rate is much higher, so this does not work good.
In the 2020 report of Hannah Madden, made for the Statian Government, goat numbers were estimated to 7602 plus or minus 1555. From other investigations we know that an island population of goats can double in 1.6 years, which means, for Statia, a monthly increase of 400-500 goats.
The above mentioned program removed just 516 goats in a period of 8 months.
Everone can see and do the math. This way of approaching a severe problem doesn’t work at all. Instead of diminishing the number of goats, it has increased in that period with at least 2,800.
The Redonda example is general known I think.
And this is only the goat population. Sheep, pigs, donkeys, cows, chicken, etc. do their best the erode the island faster and faster.