Changes in island biota - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 207

The same informant stated that goats were also introduced to Lady Elliot Island,
from 1863 to 1873, and at Lady Musgrave Island during the 1890s, by lighthouse
keepers and guano miners, as a source of milk and meat. Goats were present at
Lady Musgrave Island until 1974, when they were eradicated (QNPWS, 1999c).
In addition to Lady Elliot and Lady Musgrave Islands, goats were introduced to
many other islands. In 1926, at North Keppel Island, one report stated:
Mr Walls Senior, a resident of the island, was interviewed. He stated that a
small herd of goats existed on the island when he arrived in 1926. Soon after
he introduced Sannean goats as a milking herd. He stated that the feral goat
herd then began to increase until it stabilized at the present population of
approximately 700 to 1,000 goat s. 5
In 1935, goats were found grazing on Digby, Percy, North Palm and Grassy
Islands; the latter island, found in the Whitsunday Group, was reported to have
at least 600 goats present in 1936 (Birtles, 1935, pp101, 153; Caldwell, 1936,
p39) . 6 In the same year, large herds of goats were found 'on Lady Musgrave and
nearby islands'; the animals were also found on Penrith Island, in the Whitsunday
Group, and on the northern part of Long Island. When Boyd Lee left Grassy
Island, in 1938, he left behind 'several hundred goats, half a dozen cows, several
bulls, a horse, and poultry'; the goats, however, had escaped from their enclosure
and were running loose on the island (Caldwell, 1938, p136) . 7 E lliot (1950, p9)
reported that goat herds were present on Orpheus and North Palm Islands and
also that the deliberate transfer of animals between islands occurred:
Goats and pigs have been raised on Orpheus and have gone wild. Some years
ago a batch of goats was transferred from Orpheus to North Palm and these
have increased greatly in numbers, much to the satisfaction of the fishermen.
Two other reports, written in 1956 and 1962, indicated that small herds of goats
were also present at North Molle and Saddleback Islands . 8
Documentary evidence describes the impacts of goats on island landscapes.
In particular, the destruction of vegetation at Lady Musgrave Island has been
documented since 1928, when Napier (1928, pp35-6) provided the following
account:
The undergrowth has been completely eaten away by a flock of goats which
have inhabited the place for years, whereas every other island that we saw was
clad so thickly in its green and tangled robe of grass and weed and low-hung
twisted branches that the crossing of it was a long and hot and complicated
task. […] All the undergrowth has long since gone; hardly a weed can be
found from one end of the place to the other; every branch has been denuded
of its leaves, and even the bark upon the trees has been gnawed away to the
height of several feet.