Producer spotlight: Inside WA’s 9km goat trap

Helicopters overhead, motorbikes on the ground and long days in the dust have long defined goat mustering across Australia’s rangelands. The noise and movement oftentimes are counterintuitive to the process of harvesting.

Murchison House Station, 570km north of Perth, was recently featured on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Landline for its system that has replaced the traditional noise of mustering with something far quieter and proving to be more efficient.

How the system works

Owner Calum Carruth has built a system that works with the landscape rather than against it.

The trap itself is around 9km long by 25m wide.  

Stretching across the border of the property, the trap design uses a series of wings and gates to guide goats towards a central holding area, built around key water points. The infrastructure draws on natural behaviour where goats move in search of water, and the system channels that movement.

Instead of being mustered or pursued, over time, rangeland goats are moving themselves.

The gates on the trap are monitored and triggered remotely via telemetry, allowing the system to be managed from a distance. The results for Calum have been a reduction in labour and helicopter use, reducing cost and risk, which are both key considerations for remote areas.

Unique goat management

The station borders the Kalbarri National Park, known for its unique biodiversity. Within the property boundaries is the fragile Pillawarra land system, containing prehistoric marine sediments. In WA, rangeland goats are considered pests, with efforts focused on actively removing them from these ecosystems.

To protect these systems, the obvious solution was to invest in fencing. Using the fencing to form a trap, Calum effectively converted what is locally viewed as a pest into a livestock enterprise that will see a return on investment within the next five years.

Applied harvesting methods

While the scale of the trap is unique, the thinking behind it is not. There is a gradual move across large-scale grazing operations towards systems that rely more on infrastructure and technology, and less on labour-intensive intervention.

Transitioning from a method of harvesting reliant on timing, conditions, and access to a year-round passive activity, Calum has been able to harvest goats more sustainably. Fencing, water placement and remote monitoring replace active mustering, a model that could extend to other regions and species, particularly for feral animals such as pigs or camels.

The welfare of the animal is also considered with a reduction in stress that is typically caused through traditional mustering methods. As the trap continues to be refined, Calum and Murchison House Station will continue to be a pioneering case study for the Australian goat industry.

You can read more on the station via ABC online, or catch the Landline segment here.