Fun fact : One of the funniest "real life is stranger than fiction" stories ,for me is when the government of Ecuador essentially had a war with goats . Yes. The animals. This is a thread on how it happened.

A little background on goats . They are , despite belief, actually quite intelligent and very adaptable. They have the ability to survive in almost all climes and a very good reproductive rate. They have been shown to have quite high cognitive ability and learning.

The Galapagos islands are one of the world's most unique biodiverse locations, and where Charles Darwin went to develop the theory of evolution. They are located about 900 km off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. They are where the story takes place.

Goats first arrived to these islands on the ships of whalers, who left them there to survive so they could have food when they made a pit stop. I don't think they really expected them to do as well as they did. In 1959,some fishermen left 3 goats there. These 3 turned into 30000

By the 90's there were close to 300,000 goats on the island. They ate everything. All the foliage on the island was eaten. The other species on the island started to starve. The Giant Galapagos Tortoise , for example , went from 250k+ to under 4000 . Something needed to be done.

It was agreed that all the goats needed to be killed. Ideas like importing lions came up , but it was too crazy. So, they decided a war on goats needed to be declared and for that, they called in The Military. This was the launch of the codenamed- "PROJECT ISABELLA"

The operation began with squads of hunters crossing the island with squads of hunters , which shot all the goats on sight. However this was inefficient. So they brought in *Helicopters* with two trained snipers on either side to systematically shoot and eliminate the goats .

You'd have thought this meant the end of the goats? Wrong. The goats while suffering losses at first , grew wise to this tactic. They learnt the sound of the helicopters and started to hide underground , and maintain foliage cover . They resorted to guerilla tactics.

This brought in the use of the infamous - "Judas Goat" . What's a Judas Goat you ask? Well. They would find a female goat in the wild , tag it with a GPS tracker , and let it lead them to it's underground comrades. They would then proceed to slaughter everyone except the Judas

They used several Judas goats and by 2006 , finally after a long battle with the goats putting up stiff resistance. The main islands were declared Goat Free and the population of species like the Giant Galapagos Tortoise started to rebound.

The war on goats....was won. But spare a moment for the tenacity, wisdom and drive of the Capra aegagrus hircus aka the domestic goat