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The History of Australian Cashmere

Cashmere Goats probably came to Australia with the First Fleet. It has even been suggested, although there is no documentary evidence, that goats were liberated on the islands off the coast of Australia by Dutch and Portuguese navigators long before the British settlement of Australia. The introduced goats would appear to have come from a great variety of backgrounds and they accommodated readily to the Australian environment.

Some early efforts were made to develop a fleece goat industry in Australia. William Riley, in l832 imported "Angora-Cachemire" animals to increase the quality and quantity of down fibre growing on previously imported goats. In that year he delivered a paper to the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of New South Wales in an effort to encourage the development of a cashmere/angora fleece industry in Australia. It has taken a further l50 years for Australian graziers to develop some of his concepts.

In an advertisement in 1832 in the Western Australia publication Colonial Paper, W.Tanner of Caversham, offered young half-bred "Cashemere" bucks for sale at 3 pounds each. Other introductions occurred in Australia in the l800’s. Wilson (1873) records that Dr. Chalmers imported 49 cashmere goats through Melbourne in 1863 from Chinese Tartery. At this time Wilson was running his own flock of Cashmere goats at Longerenong in Western Victoria. These were descendants of one male and two females imported from India.

It is likely that the gold rush period brought the demise of the infant goat industry. Prior to the gold rush flocks of grazing animals, goats and sheep were controlled by shepherds. Most abandoned their charges in favour of making their fortune on the gold fields. The landowners then had to make some attempt at fencing their runs. Rudimentary fences could be erected to control sheep, who on large runs without fences would keep to the open plains. The goats were not controlled by fences and actively sought the rougher country as their grazing environment. Thus forming the large herds of wild (or feral) goats that became well established in much of inland Australia. Eventually the spread of settlement pushed these herds back into the semi arid sparsely settled areas of the country.

CASHMERE REDISCOVERED
Cashmere was effectively rediscovered on Australian goats in l972 when two CSIRO researchers Dr. Ian Smith and Mr. Wal Clarke identified cashmere on some feral goats under inspection at the property of The Australian Mohair Company at Brewarrina. For a number of years the CSIRO maintained a small research herd of selected animals at their Prospect laboratory until budget restraints forced their dispersal.

By the late l970’s a number of breeders were toying with the concept of developing and breeding an Australian cashmere goat.  Their "Selected" feral goats produced 40 - 60 grams of cashmere per year under farmed conditions.

TODAY
Some 20 years on a dedicated band of Cashmere Growers situated in all states of Australia have produced the modern Australian Cashmere Goat.    Selected "bred-on" (improved) Australian goats produce up to 500 grams for the best types. The heaviest cutting buck in Australia produces over 1 Kg. of down.  Some special strains are under further development.  The "Karakan", for example, produces a very high yielding down with a length of up to 160 mm.