Challenge of The Mind

Luis Acevedo

Mr. Skipper

Encounters 8th

March 15, 2022

Capra Hircus Goats

Introduction

The Capra hircus goat has become an issue on many islands because it's an invasive species. It affects a big part of different islands in the world. Many of these goats were brought over from other parts of the world that are more suited to sustain the species of goat. This species of goat is very good at adapting to different environments and it has been able to survive for so many years on these islands without any problems. On these islands, they also have animals that want to kill them. Wild dogs and hyenas are some of the animals. After so many years, the government of these islands “are“ finally taking charge and fixing the problem that these goats made. A couple of the ways that the people take care of these goats is by relocating them to different parts of the world. They're also allowing owners of property to kill the goats if the goats are damaging their property. but most of the goats are getting relocated. Many of the problems it causes are trampling over native plants and destroying native ecosystems.

Taxonomy and Description

The goat looks like any other Farm goat. It has medium-long hair and horns like any other goat. But what differentiates these goats from regular Farm goats is that they are feral. A hairy goat that likes to grace along the windy but dry mountainsides (Safire). The fur from this species of goat was very sought after because their fur was harder to collect and it was high quality. A lot of people wanted it because they said that it was the softest fur you could get. The fur from these goats became very popular among the higher people and all of them wanted to get a piece of clothing made out of this. But then a publisher came out saying that the way they would get the fur was not as harmful as everybody thought. In 1880, Mrs. A. G. F. Eliot James in "Indian Industries" wrote, "The pashm, or shawl-wool, is a downy substance (Safire). Although many people still believed that a lot of cruelty was being done to these animals to get their fur. These goats are also not your average farm animal because they are feral and if you see one out in the islands where they became feral don't get near one. This species of goat looks like all other types of goats. They have medium-long hair of all different colors and horns of all different shapes and sizes. They also have beards like all the other species quoted and their tail looks exactly like the species of goats that are harmless. The only difference is that these goats are known for getting very territorial and violent.

Introduction to Non-Native Habitat

The copper Hercules goat was exported from its native land and native habitat to new and different parts of the earth where they were not familiar with the terrain. This caused the goats to go from being domesticated to being feral and roaming around these new places. Goats arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788 (environment). The copper Hercus goat was domesticated many years ago when they used to roam around the western part of the Middle East where there were some mountains and some planes. Around that time they started transporting the goats to two different parts of the world and their habitats started to change a lot. The goat started to survive on all of the different types of plant species on these new islands or new continents that they were taken to. Since there are so many goats on this new part of the earth started to eat most of the native plants on the islands and continents. Sometimes they would also trample over the plants causing the plants to regrow with different deformities. These goats were being used to get the milk, meat, and fur for the colonizers colonizing Australia. At the time this became a problem because many people forgot about the goats or they set them free and also escaped. Many of these goats became feral and started trampling over the crops and native plants over the island of Australia. This is a problem because these goats are very territorial and when they saw a person get near their territory they would get mad and charge at the person.Feral goats now occur across 28 per cent of Australia (environment). These goats also introduce more of a problem to the native plants of Australia because they were transferring seeds from other plants to other areas of Australia and they're carrying them in their fur. This caused the wrong type of plants to grow in the wrong type of environment and sometimes this cost a major change and the section where those were accidentally introduced to.

Adverse Effects

In Australia where most of these goats are from, they stay away from different Wildlife that are predators to them. For example, dingoes and coyotes are animals that these goats tend to stay away from and that's why they roam around sheep grazing areas. Where dingos and wild dogs are present, feral goats generally do poorly (environment). the reason these goats are an sheep grazing areas where sheeps are monitored by people is that the people in charge of these sheeps removed or controlled the population of the wild dogs and dingoes around the area. That's why many of these goats roam around in this area because they know that it's safe.  In this area, these goats also live in two separate herds. One is filled with males and the other one is filled with females. Twice a season they I'll come together and reproduce and in this species of goats. with twins and triplets being common (environment). This is another reason why they're invasive because they repopulate very quickly. This impacts the environment around them because whenever they are in big groups they like to walk around and could potentially trample over some native plants. This causes the plants to have some modifications and they're owned environment. Feral goats have a major effect on native vegetation through soil damage and overgrazing of native herbs, grasses, shrubs and trees (environment). This species of goats are good and bad for the economy. because whenever they are near farmland they are a major pest because they go up and eat all of the vegetation in the farmland. They are also beneficial to the economy because many hunters use them to win in competitions and this draws a lot of attention to Australia. because many people travel to go and hunt there. Apart from that this species of goats repopulates very fast and in big numbers so it's never really a threat to the species of the goats.

Conclusion: Study, Control, and Eradication

In many of the islands surrounding Australia and on Australia many measures have been taken to try and control the spread of these feral goats. The Australian government tried to take a more peaceful approach to this by luring them into a big open area which is monitored by people to make sure that the goat stay in this contained area. This didn't work well because they would repopulate in this area causing there to be more goats in this area until there are too many goats to fit in that small space. In some of the other Islands were these goats were also a problem other people resorted to killing the goats. For instance, about 140,000 feral goats on Isabella were killed over 5 years (Elias). When the other Islands saw that killing the go to work they started to who all of the goats on their Islands the cost of a problem. At the same time, nearly 99% of the goat population on Santiago was killed (Elias). These goats are still a problem in many of the islands around Australia and in Australia. In many of these places they do not allow them to kill the goat making it harder for them to get rid of them.

Works Cited

Elias, Scott A. "Capra hircus." sciencedirect, 2014, www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/capra-hircus

"Domestic Goat." Jungledragon, www.jungledragon.com/specie/827/domestic_goat.html.

Safire, William. "Pashmina."The New York Times Magazine, 16 Jan 2000, archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20000116mag-onlanguage.html.

“The feral goat (Capra hircus).” environment, www.dcceew.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/feral-goat.pdf.