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so one of the most ancient struggle in humanities's existence
is our fight fight for survival with nature
and more specifically our struggle to survive against animals
humans have struggled with animals since well...
pretty much forever and even in the 20 and 21st centuries
nature will often get the better of us
many of you will have probably heard about the great emu war
in which the Australian government went to war with modern
machine guns against their emus population .. and failed
this is a similar story but even more wierd
lets start with where the story takes place
The Galapagos islands in the pacific ocean that are a part of ecuador
the island are famous for their biological diversity
which was so great , it was the place that
helped Charles Darwin
to develop his theory of evolution
there are several animal species that can only be found on the islands
like the Galapagos tortoise the largest tortoise
species in the world but then... goat
started arriving and became the greatest threat to
the native species of the island that they've ever known
the islands are over 900km away from the
south american mainlands so they didn't swim , they were brought by humans
who thought it was a great idea at the time
the Spanish brought them for food and released them into the wild
but when they found out that British pirates were settling the area
and fighting these goats for their own food they released dogs
into the wild to try and kill them that
didn't work and then on one of the islands
in 1959 a couple fishermen brought just 3 goats
that also escaped into the wild one male and
two females just 14 years later
it was estimated that those 3 original goats
had exploded into a population of
over 30000 goats that were rampaging
across the islands by the 19 90s the goat the problem
began to get out of hand with the goat army over
25000 strong it was destroying the natural habitats
of the islands they were eating everything they could find
which was destroying the food eaten by the islands native
species as a result creatures like the giant
Galapagos tortoise were starving to death their own numbers
had decreased form over 25000 down to just
3000 left by the 19 70s the
goats were creating an environmental disaster
and concerned biologists began brainstorming
potential solutions it was eventually decided
that the native wildlife on the islands needed to be saved and the only way
to do that was to remove all the 250000
goats rounding them all up and transporting them somewhere else
somewhere else was decided to be difficult
so several other crazy plans were developed instead
including one idea to import lions to
the island s that would eat the goats they eventually decided that
was dumb but agreed that an all out war
needed to be declared on the goats and every single last goat
on the islands needed to be destroyed and for that
they brought in the military after
after years of debating and planning the Galapagos conservancy initiated
project Isabella the systematic killing of all goats
and other pests from the Galapagos islands
the began at first simply with squads of hunters
crossing the islands and shooting as they found them
but this was determined to not be terribly efficient or quick enough
so then they brought in helicopters with trained sharpshooters
brought in from New Zealand to fly around and mow down the goats in herds.
There would be two gunners on either side of the helicopter
and when the pilot managed to herd a group of goats together
into a tight pack they would open fire and wipe all of them out
this tactic proved effective because within in the first year
starting, 90% of the islands goats
had been eliminated the remaining 10% meant
thousands of goats where still out there though. And they started going
under ground. The surviving goats grew
wise to the sound of helicopters knowing that their sound meant instant death
they scattered and fled to the hidden parts of the island
and continued gorilla style war against their human attackers
You already know how quickly
just three goats managed to reproduce into 30,000 goats
so even if only a handful remain
the environmental disaster they were causing would restart
all over again eventually all bold
new strategy had to be developed to finish the war.
And so project Isabella came up with the idea of
Judas Goat, essentially a team would capture a female goat from the wild
tag it with a gps tracking
device and release it to go find it's friends the hunters would follow
the goat back to the herd and just like Judas
it would betray it's friends to be slaughtered.
Once the herd was eliminated the hunters would always leave the Judas Goat alive
to go find new friends to start the entire process
over again. Everywhere the Judas Goat went
it unknowingly would bring death it.
Over two more long years the team employed
over 900 such Judas Goats to finish the war
by 2006 it was declared
that the main islands were free of goats for the first time in
centuries and the vegetation they destroyed
was begging to come back. The Galapagos turtle
population has since rebounded to over 19,000
so the operation has achieved it's goals
that being said, project Isabella is not
without controversy the slaughter of a quarter of a million
goats was and is controversial today to some
but their deaths met the saving from extension
of several other species.
it should be humanities's responsibility to protect all life
on our planet because we're the only species
cable of understanding how to
do it.
One of the biggest threats to life on earth comes in the form of asteroids from space.
and my friends over at Cheddar have created
a really interesting video about how's responsibility it is exactly
to protect us from them, the link to their video and channel
is in the description and I strongly encourage you to
check it out and consider subscribing to them if you enjoy
the videos I create .
they make informational videos about business, technology, and media
and they just recently launched their own channel so if you're looking to
learn more about the world go and check them out next.
*outro music*