History
They first arrived on San Clemente from Santa Catalina Island, another of the Channel Islands, in 1875, and there they remained feral until the United States Navy, which was under a directive to preserve the endangered flora and fauna of the island that were threatened by the grazing of nonendemic species, sought their removal. After initial trapping and hunting failed to eliminate the goats, the Navy began a shooting program to exterminate them. This was blocked in court by the Fund for Animals, who asserted the goats did not hurt any endangered species, and thought the Navy was using this claim as an excuse. This was incorrect, as the threatened and endangered species of plants were already federally listed and protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Goats were put up for adoption on the mainland by the Clapp family and by the Fund for Animals. The U.S. Navy was given the right to exterminate the remaining goats, and the last goat on San Clemente Island was killed in April, 1991,
Read more about this topic: San Clemente Island Goat
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is a history in all men’s lives,
Figuring the natures of the times deceased,
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things
As yet not come to life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)