Changes in island biota - The Great Barrier Reef: An Environmental History - page 210

As a result of concerns about this destruction, the removal of goats was advocated
from the island National Parks of the Great Barrier Reef.
In 1969, W. Wilkes, the Secretary of the QNPWS, summarised the problem of
goats in the Bunker Group National Parks:
A number of National Park islands under control of this Department are
suffering from the ravages of goats but little work has been done on the
problem to date. It is clear however that they are a serious threat to the
vegetation of an island and as exotic fauna it is desirable to eliminate them
from the National Parks. Except in the case of very small islands however,
this is difficult to accomplish . 20
One reason why the eradication of goats was difficult to accomplish was the
deliberate transfer of some animals between islands as Julie Booth, a naturalist
resident on Fairfax Island, reported in 1969. She stated: 'There have been a large
number of campers at Lady Musgrave who visited Fairfax […]. [They] brought
two goats over from the other island, which they were going to leave here'.
Consequently, she reported, goats were destroying vegetation at Fairfax Islan d. 21
Additional details of the destruction of vegetation at Lady Musgrave Island
were sent to the Queensland Government Botanist in 1970, in a report which
described the limited spread of Caesalpinia bonduc (the native plant known as
'Wait-a-while') on islands where goats were present. The report stated that,
although MacGillivray and Rodway recorded the presence of Caesalpinia bonduc
at Northwest, Hoskyn and Lady Musgrave Islands in 1927, in the Reports of the
Great Barrier Reef Committee , by 1970 at Lady Musgrave Island only the seeds
of that plant were found. That report acknowledged that 'the island was in the
final stages of devastation by goats'. In contrast, at Hoskyn Island where no goats
were present, Caesalpinia bonduc had grown continuously since 192 7. 22 At Lady
Musgrave Island, the goats remained on the island until their eradication in 1974;
elsewhere, the impacts of goats persisted until later, as at North Keppel Island,
where in 1975 there remained 800-1,000 goats on the island that were starting
to cause erosion on the eastern side of the island by overgrazin g. 23
During the 1970s, in response to substantial evidence of destruction of island
vegetation by goats, the systematic eradication of the animals from many islands
of the Great Barrier Reef commenced. Feral goats were removed from Lady
Musgrave, Fairfax and Hoskyn Islands in 1971. By 1972, about 500 goats had been
destroyed at Brampton Island, with around 150 animals remaining on the island,
and goats were also removed from Lindeman Island at around the same tim e. 24
Another major eradication programme occurred at South Percy Island, and by
1976, the removal of goats had also been completed at North Keppel Island . 25
However, the eradication of goats - specifically, the disposal of the carcasses -
itself created an environmental problem. Nevertheless, in 1976, a report by J. S.
McEvoy, the Senior Zoologist of the QNPWS, about the experimental eradication
of goats at North Keppel Island - which contained photographs of the extensive