Hearts, Dollars of Animal Lovers Go Out to Wild Goats

Loren and Alice Rucker paid $60 for a pair of wild goats Saturday, even though they didn’t really need any goats.

“We just heard about them, so we bought some,” said Alice Rucker, who lives with her husband and daughter in a rural corner of Sylmar. “We thought we’d do our duty.”

The Ruckers were part of a small gathering of Los Angeles County residents who came to the Los Angeles County Animal Care and Safety shelter in Castaic in hopes of providing homes for a herd of refugee goats.

Recently separated from a larger herd on San Clemente Island, the goats had escaped U.S. Navy plans to shoot them because they were damaging animal and plant life.

Rescue Began Last Week

Last week, with Navy marksmen waiting in the wings, the international Fund for Animals began rescuing the goats, trapping them with nets thrown from helicopters and shipping 200 to the mainland on a barge. Loaded into cattle trucks, the goats were driven Thursday to shelters in San Diego and Los Angeles counties, with 97 arriving at Castaic.

On Saturday, as county officials and representatives of the animal protection group watched, the goats were offered for sale to the public as part of a carefully managed “adoption program.”

Inside the shelter, which normally houses impounded or abused animals from the Santa Clarita Valley, animal fund staffers manned a table throughout the day, interviewing customers and dispensing “adoption” contracts.

Paula Van Orden, a spokeswoman for the fund, said her organization had been “besieged” with calls since the rescue operation began, with purchase offers coming from as far away as Vermont and Mexico. She estimated that the fund had handled at least 1,000 calls in the past week, and other calls were taken at county shelters.

50 Buyers, Media

On the first day of the sale, the shelter drew roughly 50 prospective buyers along with a crowd of reporters and cameramen. The buyers, mostly couples, came in pickups, station wagons and even a small hatchback.

“In a sense, it’s like bringing a big dog into a New York apartment,” said author Cleveland Amory, the head of the animal fund and the moving force behind the rescue efforts. “You’ll always have a certain person who can handle it, and a certain person who can’t.”

The goats, Van Orden said, are for sale under strict conditions. Purchasers have to buy at least two, unless they already own a “companion animal.” Male and female sets will have to be neutered and spayed to prevent the goats from breeding. Customers are required to meet flexible “minimum acreage and fencing requirements” so goats will not get away. Veterinarians and medical records are to be made available on request. The fund expects a health report every six months.

Males cost $25, while females, which are scarcer, sell for $35.

The customers ranged widely in age and appearance. An aerospace engineer from Simi Valley bought two females, loading them into the back of a station wagon. An elementary schoolteacher from Canyon Country bought a female, which briefly escaped from the back of his covered pickup. A young woman from Acton bought a small male for her 19-month-old daughter, noting that “where we live every kid on the block has a goat.”

The goats appeared fractious. Gathering in bunches at the backs of two pens, they made repeated efforts to avoid capture, leaping over trash cans, water troughs and other goats.

Many of the buyers criticized plans to shoot goats still remaining on the island.

“This whole thing really tees me off,” said Gregory Fagan of Woodland Hills. “If I could take them all I would.”

While most of the buyers said they hoped the goats would eat unwanted plants in the yards or provide companionship for other animals, a few were less precise.

“It’s not like we’re professional goat people or anything,” said Becky Fee of Simi Valley. “I’m here because they have sweet-looking faces.”

Van Orden predicted that all 97 goats could be sold by the end of the week.

“Today we found 17 homes,” she said. “In all they took 34 goats--16 females and 8 males. We just sold 8 to a man in Woodland Hills. So far, we’re pulling it off.”