Black goats are seen in this photo provided by the Rural Development Administration.
SEOUL, Jan. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — Black goats are rising as a social issue around Jeju Island.
The Ministry of Environment announced that it will begin a project to capture black goats living on Cheongdo Island, an uninhabited island off the coast of Jeju, in April and May.
Government officials confirmed that there were some 30 black goats living on Cheongdo Island during monitoring of the island conducted in September last year.
Goats grazing in rural areas and islands are classified as a level 2 hazardous species to the environment by the National Institute of Environmental Research due to the risk that they can have on local ecosystems.
While the population of goats was culled in 2008, 2012 and 2020, the remaining goat population continues to grow.
This time, the ministry plans to capture the goats alive instead of culling them.
A number of black goats live around Mount Sanbang, a national monument, posing a risk to the local ecosystem there, as well as the risk of landslides.
The black goats living around the mountain are assumed to have come from those released by local citizens in the early 2000s.
There are no countermeasures currently in place, however, except for a number of traps that were set up three or four years ago.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
