Wild pigs blight New Zealand suburb with wild goats

Marauding wild pigs have blighted a central suburb in New Zealand, killing kid goats at an urban farm, intimidating dogs and turning up in residents gardens.

The owners of a goat milk farm in the hills of Brooklyn, 10 minutes from the centre of Wellington, have lost about 60 kid goats to pigs in the past few months. Often, all that remains of them are gnawed bone fragments and parts of the hooves or head.

It is a murder scene, said Naomi Steenkamp, the farm's co-owner. If they find something they like eating, and it is a free feed like a newborn kid, they are going to keep coming back. Wellington City Council has confirmed that the wild pig population in the suburb of Brooklyn, which backs on to farmland and regenerating bush with walking tracks has been expanding and is causing problems for locals.

New Zealand s feral pig population descended from pigs brought out of colonial ships in the late 1700s. They are now well established over a third of the country and are known to damage native ecosystems and pastures, kill newborn animals such as lambs and carry bovine tuberculosis.

In a month ago, Steenkamp's husband Frans shot and killed a boar that broke through their fence and came within 20 metres of their house. The 120 kg animal was the largest they had come across in their five years of farming.

She said that she did not know if it was a ticking time bomb, but she said that many other locals contacted her with their own experiences after she posted a picture of the dead pig on social media.

It was crazy how many people came out of the woodwork saying they had pigs in their garden, pigs bailing up their dogs, she said. One guy was feeding them and thought it was pretty cool until he charged him. Steenkamp wants to see the pigs go so that native bush can regenerate, because she wants to protect her own livelihood. I want kiwi in my backyard eventually but we need to get on top of pigs because it is an isolated pocket that has got out of control. It was difficult to put precise numbers on how many pigs were running wild in the area, but there has been an upsurge, said Richard Maclean, the council spokesman.

He said that the population must be burgeoning, given that we are now getting complaints about pigs appearing in backyards.

People tend to think of Wellington city as a pristine place where you can't have pigs or goats, but the wild animals hindering the council's efforts to regenerate native bush and bring back birdlife, Maclean said.

The combination of public and privately owned land makes it hard for pest control to be thorough in their work. The council contracts a hunter to regularly cull pests in the hills around Brooklyn.

Maclean said that he does what he can, and he keeps the numbers down. It's hard to control what is happening there, because you can't go on to private land without permission from the owner. There was a long history of wild pigs in the area, Maclean said, adding that people might be stocking the area for hunting purposes.

It is a wild scene down there. We don't want people to suddenly think they can get in there and start helping out, taking in guns and dogs. We want to avoid all sorts of chaos and conflict and keep everyone safe.