Thread by @DavidZabinsky

In 1997, they declared war.

And it'd take a team of elite snipers, ruthless aerial assaults, and multi-million-dollar tracking technology in order to find and kill the enemy.

But who was the enemy, you ask?

Goats.

200,000 of them.

A thread on the "Goat War" of the Galápagos:

We start in the 1830s.

Charles Darwin shocked the world with his theories on evolution upon studying South American finches.

That is, Darwin saw 18 distinct types of finch throughout the Galápagos Islands, arguing each species had to evolve in order to survive its environment.

For Darwin, with the Galápagos Islands full of such unique and beautiful biodiversity, the archipelago was a "little world within itself."

A little world that boasts some of the universe's most stunning creatures, like the Marine Iguana...

...the Blue-Footed Booby...

...and of course, the Galápagos Tortoise.

The Galápagos Tortoise, unique to the Galápagos Islands, is the largest tortoise on the planet, with many weighing over 500 lbs (225 kg).

They also live...like, forever.

Harriet, seen here, lived to 175 years young!

But by the 1990s, the Galápagos Tortoise faced a grave existential threat, one that would make these "living boulders" completely extinct.

The threat?

Well, in the words of scientists:

"Invasive alien mammals."

But in the words of you and me?

Goats.

Lots of them.

These goats of the Galápagos?

Multiplying exponentially, they were devouring the Galápagos vegetation down to the very last root.

And by destroying the islands' foliage, these horned herbivores were eradicating the Galápagos Tortoise's ONLY form of sustenance:

Plants.

The solution...to help save the Galápagos Tortoise from eternal extinction?

Well...kill the goats.

All of them.

So just like that, in 1997, the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park declared war...

On goats.

Called "Project Isabela" (named after the archipelago's largest island of goat inhabitants), a strategic deployment of ground and aerial assaults ensued.

The bombardment?

It worked.

Within a few years, 90% of the goats were "removed".

The only problem?

The goats quickly understood what the hovering helicopters meant, so they began to repopulate and live in more hidden and covered areas where they'd be protected from assault.

One scientist said:

"It's easy to remove 90 percent of a goat population from an island.

As they become rarer and rarer, they become harder to detect. They become educated.

So the goats start hiding. You end up flying around in an expensive helicopter not finding any goats."

The solution?

Well, goats - by nature - are gregarious.

They live and move in herds.

So instead of firing machine guns down on the last remaining goats, the Project Isabela team went from a gung-ho Air Force to a more strategic CIA and implemented a new tactic:

Judas goats.

Just as Judas betrays Jesus in the New Testament, Project Isabela researchers tried to create Judas goats that would betray their own herds.

The strategy?

Capture a Galápagos goat, fit with a tracking-device-collar, and then release back into the wild...as a Judas goat.

From there, with researchers tracking the Judas goat's every move, the Judas goat would innately associate with other goats, luring large herds into open areas..

Then...bam.

Each goat gets shot... except the Judas goat.

Rinse and repeat.

A traitorous Judas goat indeed.

The Judas goat strategy, however, was expensive.

The original technique - killing goats by land and by air - cost only between $10 and $100 per goat "removal."

But the Judas strategy...making use of a sophisticated track-and-trace technology?

It cost over $10,000 per kill.

Despite how expensive it was, the Judas goat methodology worked.

From 2001 onwards, 7% of Isabela's goats were killed in Judas goat operations, making the island goat-free by 2006.

But just how expensive was it to - finally - rid the Galápagos of its goats?

Nearly $12 million.

By 2006 (and $12 million and 200,000 dead goats later), Project Isabela was - for all intents and purposes - victorious.

The campaign helped the Galápagos regain its lush vegetation and re-cultivated a green, plant-filled home conducive for the Galápagos Tortoise's survival.

But let us remember: it was us - humans - who brought goats to the Galápagos throughout the 1800s...and as recently as the 1970s.

Whalers and pirates introduced them to the island to serve as a fresh meat supply, not knowing they'd eat the islands dry.

That is, the Galápagos Tortoise facing near-extinction in the 1990s...was actually humans' fault.

And whilst our recent intervention may have saved Galápagos Tortoises from goats...in reality, we just saved them from...us.

For now.

Learn something new today? Enjoy this story?

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For another pretty crazy nature story...one that doesn't involve tortoises and goats, but instead: flamingoes, check out the one below...on the 'lake that turns animals into stone':

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