New Zealand Arapawa Goat Association

The New Zealand Arapawa Goat Association is made up of a group of people who are passionate about the survival and welfare of this beautiful, critically at-risk breed of small goat unique to New Zealand.

One of the rarest goat breeds in the world, the New Zealand Arapawa goat is, according to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, critically close to extinction.  A small, dual-purpose animal that was found isolated on the island of Arapawa in the Marlborough Sounds of New Zealand, there is evidence to support the belief that the Arapawa goats are direct descendants of the “Olde English” breed which is now nearly extinct.  In 1773 Captain Cook released two goats on Arapawa Island's East Bay, and on a subsequent trip in 1777 he gave another pair to a Maori chief in nearby Ship Cove.   A few decades later in 1839 a visitor to the whaling settlement on Arapawa Island said it "swarmed" with goats.

Living peacefully on the island for nearly two centuries, threatened only by the occasional hunter, in the 1970s the little goats on Arapawa Island came under the threat of eradication.  It was only through the dedication of Betty Rowe, a resident of Arapawa Island, that the Arapawa goat breed survived a cull by the New Zealand Government's Forest Service.  With their priority being the protection of the native fauna and flora on Arapawa Island, an annual cull of any surviving goats by the Department of Conservation continues, despite the decline of the breed towards extinction.