Copter Crew to Begin Rescue of Wild Goats Today

A helicopter crew armed with a net-firing device was scheduled to start a monthlong operation today to rescue hundreds of wild goats on Navy-owned San Clemente Island.

The animal rights organization conducting the program hopes to trap more than half the estimated 1,200 to 1,500 goats on the island, about 60 miles off the coast of San Diego, and return them to the mainland, where they will be offered for adoption.

In January, the goats had been marked for slaughter by the Navy as a means of preserving several species of plants, birds and lizards thought to be unique to the island and which have been placed on the federal endangered species list.

Navy biologists claim the goats, which multiply rapidly, were destroying the habitats of those specimens, which must be preserved by mandate of the U.S. Environmental Protection Act of 1973.

However, the shooting was called off at the last minute by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger to give the animal rights organization, the New York-based Fund for Animals, time to bring back alive as many of the goats as possible this month.

The organization, headed by author Cleveland Amory, had been successful in trapping hundreds of the goats in past years but was prevented from continuing because parts of the island are used for most of each year for Navy and Marine Corps bombing, shelling and landing maneuvers.

Meanwhile, the goats continued to reproduce, with the prospect that the herd could almost double its size during the upcoming breeding cycle, Navy spokesman Ken Mitchell said.

He said no decision has been reached on whether the shooting program will be reinstated when the trapping operation ends about March 4.

Amory said his helicopter crew, comprising pilot Mel Cain of San Diego and Bill Hales of New Zealand, will use a device developed by Hales to snare the animals in groups of up to five at a time.

“They use a sawed-off rifle with a funnel-shaped attachment on the muzzle in which a weighted net is folded,” he said. “It is propelled by a blank cartridge and fired down on the goats from very low altitudes, maybe 20 or 30 feet.”

After the net settles over the animals, the helicopter lands, the goats are secured and placed on trucks for transport to a corral.