Mexican Navy Comes to Aid of Island’s Wildlife-Killing Goats

It seems a familiar story: wild goats introduced to a remote island years ago breed unchecked and end up nearly destroying its fragile ecosystem.

The solution is easy, according to scientists: Kill the goats. Then the unusual plants and animals that have evolved on this rugged volcanic island 150 miles southwest of Ensenada might return.

But this story is different. Defending the 15,000 goats is, instead of crusading animal-rights activists, the Mexican Navy.

While Mexican and U.S. scientists say the goats must go, and have just completed a study to support their view, the navy believes the goats are important to national security.

Specifically, they supply an important source of food for the 25 sailors stationed on the island year-round by the notoriously cash-strapped military branch. The sailors receive supplies monthly, but the goats could be crucial if bad weather isolates the men from the mainland, naval officials say.

But the scientists are determined to exterminate the herd of hoofed vacuum cleaners that have transformed a once-lush island--whose surrounding waters are known by fishermen from Southern California as a prime spot for tuna and great white shark--into a barren, eroded moonscape.

Unlike similar debates that have played out on islands off the coast of Southern California, the disagreement over goats on Guadalupe Island has not yet attracted the attention of animal-rights activists.

Over the objections of such groups, U.S. wildlife officials instigated a similar goat eradication project on San Clemente Island, which was declared goat-free in 1994. On Santa Catalina Island, activists forced authorities to use nonlethal means to remove goats.

Researchers pushing for an end to the goat problem on Guadalupe Island believe winds of environmental change are blowing through Mexico City. And they point to recent decisions by President Ernesto Zedillo to stop a major development project in San Quintin Bay and to protect a whale sanctuary in San Ignacio, both in Baja California, as proof that the government is finally realizing the value of protecting environmental resources.

Before the newly elected federal administration takes office in December, scientists are hoping to convince higher-ups that saving Guadalupe Island’s ecosystem is more important that feeding goat meat to a few bored sailors.

From an environmental perspective, getting rid of the goats “is a no-brainer,” said Exequiel Ezcurra, research director at the San Diego Natural History Museum and former director of Mexico’s fish and wildlife department.

“The navy isn’t getting any revenue” from the goats, Ezcurra said. “The sailors go out and shoot them to get something to eat. They don’t really need them.”

Ezcurra and Bill Everett, president of the Endangered Species Recovery Council, led a team of 14 Mexican and U.S. scientists to Guadalupe in June to document the destruction that the goats have inflicted on this island since they were brought by Russian seal hunters in the mid-19th century.

Because of the goats’ constant browsing, the island’s pine, oak, cypress and palm forests have been reduced to less than half their original size.

None of the trees is less than 150 years old because the seedlings can’t survive the goats’ munching, and fewer than a dozen oak trees remain. One-fifth of the island’s 34 endemic plant species, found nowhere else in the world, have become extinct because of overgrazing. Five of nine endemic bird species have also perished, victims of habitat destruction by the goats and of feral cats let loose by sailors to keep mice out of their storehouse.

Even 12 types of a lowly but important land snail have been nearly wiped out by the goats’ overgrazing.

“There are big problems here,” said Bob Pitman, an ornithologist with the Southwest Fishery Science Center in La Jolla. Pitman scrambled across the island for five days, searching for signs of the Guadalupe storm petrel, a small seabird that once inhabited a pine forest atop a 3,000-foot ridgeline. He was able only to confirm its extinction--another sign of a dying forest.

Even a small encampment of lobster and abalone fishermen is affected. The island’s only drinkable water comes from a mountain source fed by fog condensed onto cypress trees. As the trees die off, the water supply dwindles.

Raul Urrias, president of the fishing cooperative, enjoys a good goat barbecue every now and then, but he realizes the long-term damage of the animals’ presence. “It’s a good idea to get rid of the goats,” he said.

Scientists did find a trove of native plants on two inaccessible islets that have remained goat-free. They hope to use the collection to restock the main island if the goats are removed.

Mexican navy officials in Mexico City were unavailable for comment.

Cesar Sanchez Ibarra, director of protected areas for Mexico’s environmental agency, said he wants to study the effects of the goats--as well as feral cats and rats--before agreeing to an extermination. Sanchez said he first has to verify the size and health of the goat population, as well as the cost of a complete removal.

“Dr. Ezcurra’s expedition will be very useful for the information that it brings,” Sanchez said.

Research team members note that Mexican officials have removed some of the goats several times since the early 1970s, but overall the population continues to grow.

Ezcurra will give a preliminary report to an advisory panel of the Mexican Ministry of the Environment on Aug. 4 in Mexico City.

The researchers propose rounding up as many goats as possible and then shooting the rest from helicopters. The hunters also would track a radio-collared female released as bait to draw out stray males in hiding.

“One pregnant female could repopulate the island,” said Everett, whose group has removed destructive goats, pigs and rodents from other Pacific islands. “It’s the last goat that is the most important one.”