Around 20 goats that have spent the last several months roaming alongside the East Derwent Highway need to be removed ‘as soon as possible’, the local council says.
An increasing number of motorists have reported having to swerve to avoid hitting the goats in recent weeks, as the animals have become a significant traffic hazard.
“The council’s been concerned about them for a while,” Brighton Council General Manager James Dryburgh told ABC Radio on Monday.
“The crossing the road part of things is a more recent issue, but council’s animal control team has been trying to address the issue with Parks and Wildlife for a while now.”
Dryburgh described the issue as “complicated” and said that it has been passed between multiple government departments for weeks, with a “lack of action” from both Parks and Wildlife and State Growth leaving the council “frustrated”.
“The goats reside predominantly on Parks and Wildlife land and they’re coming down onto a state controlled road, so council’s authority I guess is limited,” Dryburgh said.
“It’s not as simple as someone just going down there and catching the goats. You obviously have to manage the traffic to do something like that.”
“The perfect scenario for us would be that Parks and Wildlife go in and relocate the goats, but we have said look, if that’s too difficult we are happy to … engage a shooter to tranquillise the goats and to relocate them.”
“We’ve already arranged an appropriate shooter with permits and we have some options for people who are very happy to rehome the goats … but again we still still need permits and approval from Parks before we could do that.”
“We’re hopeful that [action will be taken] in the next couple of days,” he said.
Parks and Wildlife and State Growth have been contacted for comment.
