Australia has a well-developed livestock industry, taking 2020 as an example, they produced 16% of the world's wool and are the world's largest wool exporter, so Australia is also known as the "country riding on the back of sheep".
However, what I never expected was that in addition to the infestation of rabbits in Australia, wild goats are also overflowing, whether rabbits or sheep, this matter has to start from Britain in the 80s of the 18th century.
In 1788, the British decided to transfer a group of criminals to Australia, along with a large number of British nobles, after all, a lot of things still need to be managed, in order to pass the time, the British nobles brought a few rabbits over, let them go free and hunt for fun, as a result, the rabbits with super reproductive ability, the peak number was as high as billions.
Of course, this article is not talking about rabbits, but goats, and in order to obtain wool and lamb, the British brought a herd of goats to Australia, and with the development of Australian industrialization, the number of goats is also growing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
In addition, Australia's climate is suitable, the vegetation is dense, not to mention how comfortable the goat's life is, but the goats are still very smart animals, because there are too many farms, resulting in insufficient food, many goats escape from the sheepfold to the wild.
As a result, the escaped goats seemed to have discovered the "New World", and the outside world had plenty of food, and more importantly, there were no large carnivores in Australia to limit the number of goats, and the same was true for rabbits, so a group of wild goats was born.
If it's just a group of escapes, it's not much of a problem, the key goat species, although it eats plants, but whether it is herbaceous or woody leaves, twigs, bark, fruits, etc., they like to eat, and they are extremely non-picky eaters.
Eat it, but when the wild goats eat the plants, they will pull up the roots of the plants, and use their hooves to destroy the crusts of the soil, causing the vegetation to become more and more sparse, and the grasslands begin to degrade, and then soil erosion and soil desertification will follow, seriously damaging the local ecological environment, and the rabbits are even more hateful, and they will also burrow in the ground.
There are fewer plants, less freshwater resources, especially in the dry season, the overflow of wild goats has squeezed the living space of Australia's native animals in disguise, resulting in the endangerment of many native animals, and wild goats are also the main potential hosts of exotic diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, and there is a great risk of transmission and infection.
In 1994, Australia listed wild goats as "pest animals", and then carried out a series of rectification actions, in order to find out where the wild goats gathered, Australians first captured a wild goat, and then put a positioning collar on it, and when the sheep returned to the group, Australians knew where the wild goats gathered.
The main focus of the campaign was "special hunting", which meant shooting wild goats directly with firearms.
But the sheep species is not stupid at all, since humans shoot with firearms, wild goats are clever to hide, they will hide behind some rocks, even if the Australians drive helicopters, it is difficult to find their traces, and the accuracy of shooting while moving is very low, this is not a movie, in reality the accuracy of "mobile shooting" is very low.
Wild goats that are exposed to the outside will also scatter and flee when they hear the sound of helicopters, cars, and firearms.
According to the survey, the number of wild goats in Murray Sunset National Park is as high as 8,000, as mentioned above, a total of 459 wild goats were eliminated in a helicopter hunt operation, but the cost was as high as 70,000 US dollars, which is equivalent to about 500,000 yuan, that is, the cost of exterminating a wild goat in Australia is about 1,089 yuan. (Including tree planting fees)
However, short-term control has not been effective, and Australia has never solved the problem of wild goat overpopulation, which causes about $25 million in damage to Australia every year.
In that case, why doesn't Australia choose to export to China?
In 1978, the per capita meat consumption of Chinese was 9 kg/year.
In 2022, the per capita meat consumption of Chinese will be 70 kg/year.
Taking the data of 2021 as an example, China's mutton consumption reached 5.549 million tons, which is undoubtedly the highest consumer of mutton in the world, and the history of eating mutton has not been reduced since the Song Dynasty, and the mainland does not have enough mutton to eat every year, and the number of mutton imports in 2022 will reach 410,700 tons, with an import amount of 2.378 billion US dollars, or about 16 billion yuan!
We need lamb, and the Australian wild goats are so infestation that it seems to fit the "supply and demand" relationship, but it doesn't work.
1. The cost of catching wild goats is extremely high, coupled with transportation, slaughtering, processing and other processes, resulting in a high comprehensive selling price of wild goats exported from Australia, in contrast, we do not need to buy Australian wild goats at a high price.
2. Wild goats live in the wild natural environment all year round, and the meat quality is not as delicious as captive sheep, and the end consumers do not like it, which will directly affect the entire mutton industry chain.
3. As wild animals, wild goats may be exposed to various bacteria, viruses and microorganisms in the wild, once this batch of wild goat meat enters the market, no matter which country it is exported to, it will cause huge potential safety risks, and if Australia strictly quarantines each wild goat, the problem is back to the "cost".
So on the whole, the way Australia chooses now is that they use funds to control and control the wild goats in a certain area, but it will not be long before the wild goats will be transferred to other regions to breed due to the lack of food in the region.