{"id":1345,"date":"2024-04-07T19:04:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T19:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=1345"},"modified":"2024-04-07T19:24:31","modified_gmt":"2024-04-07T19:24:31","slug":"italian-island-overrun-by-goats-is-offering-them-free-to-anyone-who-can-catch-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=1345","title":{"rendered":"Italian island overrun by goats is offering them free to anyone who can catch them"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>3 Minute, 4 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

The tiny, remote\u00a0Italian<\/a>\u00a0island of\u00a0Alicudi<\/a>\u00a0is home to only around 100 residents and, ideally, about 100 wild\u00a0goats<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This year, however, the ratio of humans to animals has become wildly unbalanced.<\/p>\n

The island has been overrun by six times its desired number of goat inhabitants and has more of the animals per capita than anywhere else that counts such things\u2014and mayor Riccardo Gullo is calling on anyone who can help to pitch in to solve the issue.<\/p>\n

Gullo told CNN Thursday that he does not care whether you know anything about raising goats, as long as you have a boat to get them off the island\u2014once you\u2019ve caught them.<\/p>\n

He said the \u201cadopt-a-goat\u201d program was created because the local authority will not cull the animals, which have encroached on residential areas, invaded homes, munched on whatever they can find in public parks, private gardens and hedges, and tried to climb stone walls that usually give way under their weight. (In short, they\u2019re not the greatest of all time.)<\/p>\n

According to the Sicilian regional government, the goats were introduced to the island around 20 years ago by a farmer who then set them free.<\/p>\n\n

For years, the animals\u2014which are not owned by anyone\u2014grazed autonomously on the sides of Alicudi\u2019s cliffs and are featured in almost any postcard from the volcanic island.<\/p>\n

But left to their own devices, they have reproduced at an astonishing rate.<\/p>\n

Anyone interested in taking up to 50 goats can make an official request with the community by April 10, the mayor said, though he added that he would extend the deadline until all the goats were adopted.<\/p>\n

The applicant must email their request to the local authority, and pay a \u20ac16 (around $17) stamp fee to make it official.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have heard from dozens of people since we first announced this,\u201d Gullo said, including a farmer from the nearby island of Vulcano, who produces goat cheese.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, we would like to see people try to domesticate the animals rather than eat them,\u201d he added. However, the authorities will not be doing due diligence on any goat adopter\u2019s intentions.<\/p>\n

Once the goats have been apportioned, the goat-taker has 15 days to catch and remove them from the island.<\/p>\n

While the giveaway will continue until the native herd is greatly reduced, a few will be left to pose for tourists.<\/p>\n

Alicudi<\/a>\u00a0is the least inhabited of the seven Aeolian islands\u2014the chain off Sicily\u2019s northern coast that includes Stromboli and Lipari.<\/p>\n

Goats aside, the island is also\u00a0known for its local LSD bread<\/a>, which was outlawed in the 1950s, and is a popular tourist stop for sail boats and volcano aficionados, who can see nearby Stromboli\u2019s constant eruptions.<\/p>\n

The rugged island has a large volcanic cone rising from the Tyrrhenian Sea. It has no hotels and no roads. Instead, transportation comes in the form of mules and donkeys treading steep climbing paths, according to the\u00a0Visit Sicily website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alicudi is not the first place to see an unexpected influx of wandering goats.<\/p>\n

In June, a neighborhood in McKinney, Texas woke up to a shocking sight:\u00a040 runaway goats<\/a>\u00a0strolling around\u2014and taking bites out of\u2014residents\u2019 lawns after breaking away from a herd grazing at a nearby development.<\/p>\n

And amid a coronavirus lockdown in March 2020, residents of Llandudno in Wales\u00a0spotted herds of goats roaming the streets<\/a>, after more than a dozen of the animals ventured down from the hill above the town.<\/p>\n

Source: CNN<\/p>\n

The post Italian island overrun by goats is offering them free to anyone who can catch them<\/a> first appeared on 3News<\/a>.<\/p>

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The tiny, remote\u00a0Italian\u00a0island of\u00a0Alicudi\u00a0is home to only around 100 residents and, ideally, about 100 wild\u00a0goats. This year, however, the ratio of humans to animals has become wildly unbalanced. The island… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1358,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345\/revisions\/1358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}