Eradication Of Feral Goats Galapagos

Martin Pazmiño
ENG 100
02/21/2013

Eradication of feral goats from Galapagos Islands

Capra hircus, or more commonly known as goats, are not a specie that is native to the GalapagosArchipelago. Centuries ago, seamen and whalers introduced goats in numerous islands world wide as a source of food. Because of the great adaptability this specie has, goats have managed to adapt and survivesuccessfully in foreign ecosystems creating serious problems to their introduced habitats. In the last six centuries, non-native mammals have had the main responsibility for extinction and destruction ofbiodiversity. As a result, there has been a development in techniques to eradicate feral goats from islands over the years. Techniques such as aerial and ground based hunting, as well as, the Judasgoat method have been implemented in the Galapagos Islands to preserve the archipelago’s rich biodiversity.

First of all, feral goats were hunted using both aerial and terrestrial methods. Theeradication campaign begun in the Pinta Island, in the year 1971. Initially, ground based hunting methods were employed. The operation consisted of one to five hunting trips annually (from 1971 to 1982)with groups of ground hunters armed with 0.22 caliber rifles that were accompanied by untrained dogs. Primarily, hunters focused on shooting females with the intention of reducing the reproductiverate. Later, at the end of the first campaign (1982), nearly 41,000 goats were killed and later on the island was falsely declared free of goats because of the lack of a monitoring system.Consequently, several years later due to the lack of efficiency in previous efforts, in 1999 the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Research Station applied a monitored eradication campaign on thelargest island of the archipelago, Isabela. By then, hunters received special training to maximize efficiency and were accompanied by trained hunting dogs as well. As a result, the two hunting trips...