What Would Darwin Do? Killing Goats So Others May Live
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York 
on 12. 3.08
Photo courtesy of Lind Xu
Why are environmentalists shooting goats? Why have they undertaken an elaborate plan to systematically kill hundreds of thousands of goats by means of aerial and ground hunting operations? Why to preserve life, of course.
Project Isabela: Eradicating Goats in the Name of Biodiversity
Project Isabela is an operation spearheaded by the Charles Darwin Research Center starting in 1998, and its sole purpose was to eliminate the ever-burgeoning population of non-native goats, pigs, and donkeys from the fragile island ecosystems of the Galapagos.
Those species eat the food supply of the native species and usurp the drastically limited water supply. They crowd out natives like giant tortoises by forcing them to compete for both. As the goats and pigs flourished, scientists foresaw grave consequences. They decided to act, so they initiated one of the largest and most controversial conservation efforts in recent memory.
And act they did—by getting 500,000 rounds of American-bought ammunition into the hands of sharpshooters and going on the hunt.
I've followed the teachers to a talk with Felipe Cruz, the Director of the Charles Darwin Research Center, who played an integral role in executing Project Isabela. He explains the project's logistics, strategy, and—depending on your ethical stance—overwhelming success.
The Most Effective System for Killing Goats Ever Devised
Using advanced GPS technology, Judas goats, hunting dogs, a sophisticated database, and a combination of aerial and ground hunting operations, the Project eventually eradicated over 150,000 thousand goats from the Galapagos using an average of 1.4 bullets per goat.
One primary tactic was to release a bugged goat into the wild where it would seek out others of its kind. The GPS would alert the scientists when the Judas goat had joined a community, so when intensive ground sweeps were conducted, the scientists and hunters would have precise information. That precision led to the supreme efficacy of the project, which cost a relatively scant 10 million dollars. The program will be fully completed in 2010, when bugged goats left to monitor the population will confirm the widespread success.
The Ethical Question of Euthanizing for Preservation
Of course, at the heart of this story lies a difficult ethical dilemma—is it morally acceptable to eliminate thousands of creatures to protect others? The Galapagos has one of the most fragile ecosystems in the world, as the species that have survived and thrived there for centuries have struck a delicate equilibrium. At the rate that the goats, which were only recently introduced to the islands as livestock, were proliferating it wouldn't have been long before they'd caused the extinction of myriad precious species.
Yet the goats had become wild, subsisting on the islands by no fault of their own. Additionally, they had undoubtedly proved the more adaptable species on the island—but does survival of the fittest apply when animals are introduced to a habitat by humans? If not, then why? The goats were shepherded to the island against their will much as the tortoises and iguanas that floated over on log rafts long ago were. Can we ignore the fact that humans are the most influential species on earth, and act as though won't impact any habitat we encounter?
All questions worth contemplating, none which I have time to attempt to sort out here. But one thing's for certain about the humans: introduce us to pristine, delicately balanced islands, and within fifty years or so, and what do you get?
An ecosystem that's still mortally threatened and 150,000 dead goats.
30 of the top teachers in the US are making a trek from the Florida Everglades to the Galapagos Islands in order to engage a series of global conservation issues in the Toyota International Teacher Program. I'm traveling alongside the educators to report on what we discover about the threats and wonders on modern day Galapagos.
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"by getting 500,000 American-bought rifles into the hands of sharpshooters "
500000? What were they doing there? WW3?
It surely can't be right
After the cull the harvested meat should be given to the poor and starving people of Ecuador.
its sole purpose was to eliminate the ever-burgeoning population of non-native goats, pigs, and donkeys from the fragile island ecosystems of the Galapagos.
What about eliminating ourselves off the islands? I think that would be a much better idea. Problem solved.
really ?
500,000 rifles to kill 150,000 goats can't be very accurate shooters.
Did they at least harvest the goat meat?
Angelina Jolie's character in Wanted: "Kill one, save a thousand". wonder if goat names come up on the mysterious loom...and if morgan freeman could pronounce them in goat speak.
500,000 rifles?
They haven't come up with that many in Iraq.
Might want to check your source...the total island population is about 40K, tops.
500 seem a bit more, well, reasonable.
More on the hunt here
http://www.gct.org/project4.html
and here
http://www.galapagos.org/2008/index.php?id=26
and this one adds
Pilots from New Zealand were hired to fly helicopters above the largest island, Isabela, so that gunmen could reach herds of goats with AR-15 rifles and one million rounds of ammunition imported from the United States.
So, US tech in use to support another Green cause! - makes ya proud, eh Bunky?
How inhumane of you.
There are millions of poor and starving people who could use those animals for milk,food and labor. Instead your taking those animal's lives to save some other animals diversity, and not offering your fellow humans beings the opportunity to pull themselves out of their misery.
for shame.
Why not transport the animals off the island, donate them to poor villages for milk and cheese production? How short sighted people have become
I would have liked to have read about what other (humane) methods they considered before resorting to a mass kill like this. I know that there are a lot of people out there who give goats a high value. Too bad they couldn't have rounded them up and found some kind of freighter to carry them to another location.
It makes me puke to think about all these environmentalists (including treehugger reporters) travelling to the Gallapogos Islands.
When this story is another prime example of how humans are destroying another valuable resource.
Though I do understand the dillemma. If the Gallopogos and other natural wonders establish themselves as a valuable resource for earning tourism money.... they pretty much protect themselves from the hravesting of the resources.
Oh, good old TH, never checking a source or rectifying an obvious mistake. 500K rifels...yep...sure...mmmokay.
This site is getting so pathetic with mistakes like this. Truly pathetic.
Killing these goats is dirty work, but someone has to do it.
As for the humaneness of it. We could wait until the population explodes, they eat everything down to the roots and then starve.
As for catching them, they're wild goats. Anybody ever try catching a wild goat.
As for letting poor people eat them. The small amount of meat per goat wouldn't justify the expense of properly cleaning and refrigerating the meat.
Thank you all for pointing out the glaring error--I've made the needed correction, which is that 500,000 rounds were used, not rifles. I regret the mistake.
i would love to go hunt the wild horses in america, they really tear up springs and trample the native plants