Army vets shoot horny goats with contraceptive pill to save protected woodland

By Joe Stenson -

August 9, 2016

ARMY veterans are shooting horny goats with the contraceptive pill in a bid to curb their destruction of a protected woodland.

The 222 acre Pollochro Wood – on the shore of Loch Lomond – is a protected area, home to an incredible mixture of flora and fauna. 

But the woods are under threat from feral goats which destructively graze on plant life.

Now a team of ex-army sharpshooters have been called in to administer the goats with the contraceptive pill, in a bid to keep their numbers under control.

50 goats have been given the chemical cocktail through a dart in an operation launched by the landowner, the RSPB.

The forest is unique – with a huge array of trees and lichen – but the goats are an ongoing threat

The drug will curb the mating drive of the goats for three years in an attempt to keep their numbers under control, and keep the woodland intact.

RSPB warden Fraser Lamont oversees the woods – and regularly sees the feral goats eating young trees.

He said: “There are open areas where older trees are dying off and nothing is coming through to take their place.

“The goats will walk up trees to eat the mosses and lichens some of which have taken hundreds of years to develop.”

It is the first time the technique has been deployed in Scotland – and it is being touted as a more human alternative to a culling.

Dave Beaumont is the RSPB’s south Scotland reserves manager.

He said: “The last thing we really want to be doing as a conservation organisation is shooting things, and trying to find a non-lethal method here has been particularly challenging.

Continued   

Contraceptive chemical runoff causes sex changes in frogs, study finds

APRIL 4, 2016

by Brett Smith

The hormones found in female contraception pills often male their way into the environment, and those hormones are wreaking havoc on amphibians, according to a new study in the journal Scientific Reports.

The study looked at the effects of estrogen ethinylestradiol (EE2) in three amphibians and found significant evidence they affect the hormonal systems and sexual development in these animals.

Contraceptives harming the environment

EE2 is a man-made estrogen, a commonly used active component of female contraceptive pills that does not appear in nature. It is only partially removed in sewage plants, and it can get to water bodies in biologically-important levels, the study team noted in a press release.

"Amphibians are almost permanently exposed to such threats,” said study author Matthias Stöck, an amphibian researcher at the IGB research institute in Berlin. “Only, if we will be able to actually access these risks, we will be able to eliminate them in the long term."

The researchers noted that sensitivity towards hormonally active substances, like EE2, is not the same in all amphibians, studies have found. Some species have undergone quite a few hundred million years of independent evolutionary history and have developed various mechanisms of genetic sex determination.

In the new study, researchers tested the impact of EE2 on the development of three amphibian species: the African clawed frog, tadpoles of the European tree frog, and the European green toad. All three were raised in water that contained various levels of EE2 and their development was compared to control groups.

Researchers established the genetic sex of all species using most recent molecular approaches.The scientists also studied the phenotypic progression of the sexual organs.

The study tram found a sex reversal occurred from 15 to 100 percent of the time in the animals exposed to EE2.

Read more at