Old Irish Goats Clear Brush and Prevent Wildfires

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Just ten miles from Dublin city, suburban houses nestle among the natural heathland and rocks of the Howth Head peninsula, surrounded by cliffs supporting a wealth of wildlife and vegetation. This beautiful retreat, popular with walkers, is threatened by wildfire during hot, dry summers. After a particularly damaging outbreak in 2021, local authorities turned to goats for help. Goats clear brush, maintaining fire breaks to stop fires spreading and growing out of control.

Historically, the heath had been managed by grazing herds, including landrace goats. Pastoral farming has diminished sharply since the 1950s, leaving the hills ungrazed, growing a tall and thick layer of vegetation. Gorse dominates and presents a serious fire risk to wild habitats and residential areas, being highly flammable due to its rich oil content. Mechanical clearance methods have not been sufficient to prevent recent wildfires.

Goats, however, have shown their worth as an effective and natural solution. Goats love gorse. Not only do they keep it in check, but large horned bucks also thrash and trample brush and bracken, opening up shrubland. However, the goats on Howth Head are not just any breed; they are the local landrace—Old Irish goats—honed by the environment over thousands of years to thrive on the Emerald Isle. Special skills acquired through their local adaptations make them ideal for natural vegetation control.

Goats Clear Brush with Virtual Fencing

The initial herd of 25 female goats, brought to Howth Head in September 2021, has grown annually. A bachelor herd was added, including two sires selected to join the female herd each fall, and kids are born each spring. Approximately 120 Old Irish goats now maintain the open spaces, being rotated through pastures by their herder Melissa Jeuken.

There are no physical boundaries; grazing areas are defined electronically on a digital map. A GPS device around each goat’s neck emits a sound when approaching the limits. Goats have two further sound warnings and 20 seconds to retreat before feeling a small electrical impulse. Jeuken trains each goat to respect the virtual fencing system.

Training involves aligning the electronic boundary with alpaca hurdles so that each goat learns to associate the sound with a barrier. The system has proven effective at preventing goats from wandering beyond assigned boundaries, although goats learn quickly to push its limits. When the best vegetation has been consumed, they grasp plants at the boundary zone until the last possible second before the electrical impulse is due. They have an expert sense of timing.

Conservation Grazing: an Ecologically Sensitive Solution

Old Irish goats have a wealth of knowledge of native vegetation through their long history on the island and many years living in remote natural areas. Knowledge is passed down through the generations. Kids are raised by their dams until six months old (when they start their training) so that they learn brush foraging skills out at range. They favor natural vegetation, especially gorse, and eat bracken (known to be toxic) with no discernible ill effect. They also eat invasive plants, like Gunnera and Japanese knotweed. With careful management, they cause little damage or erosion. Their agility allows them to access areas humans and machinery cannot reach.

These skills equip them to not only maintain firebreaks but also control invasive plants and enrich habitats, clearing brush to allow a variety of native plants to flourish. All of this can be accomplished by well-managed goats, without chemicals or fuel for machinery.

A Special Kind of Goat

Native breeds are best for conservation grazing due to their long adaptation to local conditions and vegetation. As long as kids are raised on their dams on natural pastures, they can continue to provide ecosystem services. Old Irish goats are ideal for Howth Head as they thrive in the damp climate and poor-quality grazing of their native land. From their introduction to Ireland around 5,000 years ago and through their pastoral history as a dual-purpose family goat, they have survived the toughest conditions and helped rural families through crop failure and poverty. However, due to changes in farming practices, they were lost to domestication in the twentieth century, finding refuge in the wilderness.

In a bid to help rural families boost production, the Board of Agriculture decided in 1911 to improve Irish stock by importing goats from England. From the late nineteenth century, ships had brought European and Nubian goats to Britain from Mediterranean ports. Due to the higher milk yield of these goats, British landowners encouraged their use as studs to upgrade English landrace stock. Their altruistic objective was to increase milk production for low-income families. However, they did not foresee the side effects of introducing foreign blood. Genes that allowed the goats to thrive with little care would be diluted and potentially lost. The improved goats would consequently need more expensive facilities, care, and feed.

An Advocate for Old Irish Goats

One man spoke out against the popular movement of upgrading landrace with foreign goats. Walter Paget, as editor of the British Goat Society’s Monthly Circular, published several articles on native British and Irish goats and how well adapted they were to their role as a dual-purpose provider for low-income families.

Paget saw the danger of diluting their gene pool with traits that would not stand up to the tough conditions required of rural goats in Ireland. He recognized the need of the people for “useful and economical producers of milk for their families. They do not need goats that give phenomenal yields when their daily consumption does not exceed a quart or two of milk per day, and they can neither afford the initial cost of fancy animals nor the system of feeding and management that such animals require.” He recognized the qualities of Irish landrace goats, stating, “The hair is long and straight and acts as a natural thatch for shedding off the rains of the Emerald Isle, these goats, as a rule, running loose with cattle on the hills and knowing little or nothing of artificial shelters, summer or winter.”

Paget urged Irish agricultural societies to select good milkers from within the breed but to maintain the type. He also warned against the inbreeding issues that would occur should farmers rely on imported breeds.

Paget’s recommendations went unheeded. Indeed, modern Irish goats are derived from imported Swiss and Nubian stock, kept in high-input systems. Old Irish goats were either absorbed into new dairy breeds or escaped to the hills, where they formed wild herds. In recent years, many fine landrace types and entire herds have been lost to unregulated hunting.

Rescue from the Brink of Extinction

Early this century, volunteer enthusiasts attempted to identify the historic type of landrace goat among the feral herds in Ireland. Not all these are purebred, as modern domestic goats occasionally stray from grazing herds. In 2012, the Old Irish Goat Society (OIGS) was reborn, and rare breed expert Ray Werner helped to identify goats displaying historic traits. Three males and nine females were captured to form a domestic breeding herd, which further animals joined following capture. Genetic testing confirmed that these goats’ genotypes were related to historic samples, distinct from imported breeds, and relatively free from crossbreeding. Through controlled breeding in a domestic setting, the goats have become tame and easy to manage.

In 2022, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine granted recognition as an “at risk” native rare breed. The Society campaigns for protection of native goats still in the wild before their gene pool is further diminished. The Old Irish goat population is currently too small (around 100 registered in 2023) to allow development for production. However, their long history as smallholder animals proclaims their potential. In their current role, as conservation grazers, they clearly excel.

Sources

• Old Irish Goat Society (OIGS)
• OIGS archive
• Lenstra, J.A., 2019. Genetic Diversity and Origin of the Old Irish and Old English Goat. Utrecht University.
• Paget, W., June 1920. British Breeds of Goat. Monthly Circular. British Goat Society.

Originally published in the Fall 2024 issue of Goat Journal and regularly vetted for accuracy.