{"id":3559,"date":"2021-05-20T12:05:26","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T12:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/?p=3559"},"modified":"2021-05-20T12:05:27","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T12:05:27","slug":"thegalapagosareoverparty-the-tale-of-goats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/thegalapagosareoverparty-the-tale-of-goats\/","title":{"rendered":"#TheGalapagosAreOverParty – The Tale of Goats"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Goat Skeleton (Capra hircus Linnaeus, 1758), Volcan Alcedo. Photo: Frank Bungartz, CDF, 2006.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Once pristine, the Galapagos Islands were an uncanny place before the invasion of men and other beings. From pioneer scientists, pirates, soldiers and colonizers, the Galapagos have been forced to be a welcoming place, against its own nature. As we know, humans never travel truly alone. From the organisms that live on our stomachs to the ones we carry for our consumption, humans and non-human beings are forever entangled. This was the same for humans in 1685, especially the ones who brought goats to the Galapagos Islands.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Goats, scientifically known as Capra hircus, are domesticated mammals with a herbivorous nature. According to the Darwin Foundation, they are one of the most harmful invasive species in the world. The Galapagos have been a great example of their harm. Since they were inserted, their population grew exponentially. Once domesticated animals with a human serving purpose, now, nothing more than feral animals reproducing like if there was no tomorrow. Upon their insertion, the feral goats have caused heavy erosion and habitat alteration affecting severely on the wellbeing of endemic species, such as, land iguanas and tortoises. Not being content with that, goats also are accomplices on the spread of wild blackberry, another feral non-human threat in the Galapagos. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now what has been done to stop this? Well, a lot. One of the early implemented solutions was hunting the goats. You could actually be sponsored or paid by killing these feral beasts. But in the year 2022, just as the pandemic was losing its force, Alexa Bezos the famous influencer and eldest daughter of the Amazon clan visited the archipelago. When she was touring the highlands and spotted a goat, the tour guide offered her a rifle so she could hunt it. She was perplexed by the offer and declined it violently. The tour guide explained that it was completely legal and encouraged by the law. She immediately took to social media to express her disbelief. She argued that it is hypocritical that the Galapagos market themselves as a \u201cone of a kind endangered ecosystem\u201d and at the same time they promote hunting inside the national park. In one of her stories, she said \u201cright now they don’t like goats, what happens when they don’t like sea lions or American tourists? Are they going to hunt us down too?\u201d These allegations led to the Galapagos Island being cancelled. Hashtags such as #TheGalapagosAreOverParty started trending on Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Due to the cancellation, the tourism-based economy dropped. Almost 99% of the tourist guide force was discharged. The mainland stopped shipping fuel. The fishermen stopped their practice. There was famine and hunger. The government abandoned all hope and started to auction off the archipelago. As the population started dying out, a couple of the few survivors saw no other option than to start eating the only other non-marine mammal left on the island, the goats. They struggled at first but, as they perfectioned the Ecuadorian recipe of \u201c<\/span>Seco de <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Chivo\u201d, <\/span><\/i>they became invincible.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

They truly did. They learned from their past mistakes and became a stronger society. The goat became their new symbol. They understood that they could not breed them, but they could eat them. They understood the importance of this resource and consumed goats with respect knowing they were going to eventually become extinct and the deliciousness of the <\/span>\u201cSeco de Chivo\u201d <\/span><\/i>would only be passed down as a folkloric tale. <\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the Ecuadorian government, they sold the Galapagos to the first bidder before realizing the utopia it became. And turns out that the bidder was one the one and only Jeff Bezos. As the new owner of the islands, Bezos ordered that, effective immediately, all types of tourist activity was forbidden. The borders were shut down to everyone except Amazon cargo ships. The surviving locals were all moved to the previously inhabited island of Santa Cruz. They were allowed to continue their goat worshipping society. He demolished the airport on Baltra and turned the already sterile island into an Amazon cargo ship rest stop for the pacific fleet. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Nowadays, three years have gone by since Bezos bought the islands. The locals have started over 4 restaurants where they sell their delicious goat meat to the ship staff. They love it. One of the restaurants is now on Amazon, it sells vacuum-sealed packaged goat ham. Also, the islands were rebranded to \u201cVitruo City\u201d and it seems everyone forgot all about the eco-related aspects of the islands. Now everyone is happy that Amazon deliveries have improved and that you can now order Chivito Hamm from the west coast to the east coast. Now that we mention Chivito Hamm, get 25% on your next order with our promo code: EthicalBlindess101. Thank you for sponsoring this article.              <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once pristine, the Galapagos Islands were an uncanny place before the invasion of men and other beings. From pioneer scientists, pirates, soldiers and colonizers, the Galapagos have been forced to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":3560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,1],"tags":[125,126,124,122,123],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Ger\u00f3nimo Burneo","author_link":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/author\/geronimoburneo1\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/mlht9cvmhadr.i.optimole.com\/cb:L9LE~2ca85\/w:300\/h:199\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/f:best\/https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/dx_0695.jpeg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Local Stories<\/a>","Possible Futures<\/a>","What is Nature Saying?<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Local Stories<\/span>","Possible Futures<\/span>","What is Nature Saying?<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["#cats<\/a>","#Galapagos Islands<\/a>","#goats<\/a>","#invasive species<\/a>","#Rats<\/a>"],"unlinked":["#cats<\/span>","#Galapagos Islands<\/span>","#goats<\/span>","#invasive species<\/span>","#Rats<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 years ago","modified":"Updated 3 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on May 20, 2021","modified":"Updated on May 20, 2021"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on May 20, 2021 12:05 pm","modified":"Updated on May 20, 2021 12:05 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"Goat Skeleton (Capra hircus Linnaeus, 1758), Volcan Alcedo. Photo: Frank Bungartz, CDF, 2006.","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/243"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3559"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3563,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3559\/revisions\/3563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.untoldstories.site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}