Judas Goats

The Galápagos Islands are perhaps best known for their contribution to Darwin's foundational "On the Origin of Species". While he had a penchant for devouring some of the species he was studying,^[1] forcing the giant tortoises to near extinction, his fellow countrymen also introduced another threat^[2] to biodiversity on the islands; goats.

The question then is, what does the biblical figure who betrayed Jesus have to do with goats in the Galápagos?

It turns out that goats are unfussy eaters, and took a liking to the fare they found in the new lands they found themselves in. In an initial attempt to eliminate the invasive species, the Galápagos National Park Service took to the sky and started blasting. Literally, helicopters would be loaded with rifle-armed men who would look for herds of goats to cull.^[3]

However, when most of the goats were wiped out, they became harder to spot. That's when the Judas goat comes in. By capturing, sterilising, radio-tagging and spray-painting a goat,^[4] we use the goat's natural gregariousness to locate its kin, for the helicopters to follow the radio tag, whir in and get down to business. The Judas goat, for its sins, is spared in order to bring doom to the next herd.

Impressively, this rather ingenious plan resulted in the eradication of more than 200,000 goats in the Galápagos. Not even kidding, the only remaining goats are the same ones who had betrayed their brethren.