article thumbnail

The Parable of the Goat Mites

10,000 Birds

And so, when Salvador Ramirez left, there were feral goats on the island of San Clemente, the southernmost of the Channel Islands off the coast of California. And so, these goats ate the flora of the island: unique species of Indian paintbrush and woodland star, bushmallow and wirelettuce and morning glory.

Goats 161
article thumbnail

When conservation and animal rights collide

10,000 Birds

Wildlife conservation is concerned with protecting wildlife at the level of species or perhaps population. With the exception of species that number in the hundreds, conservation biologists are not as concerned with the fates of individual animals, it is only when such fates of many individuals are added up do they begin to worry.