Italian island overloaded with adoption requests for nuisance goats | Animals

That will be difficult: there are only six hundred goats on the island, while the mayor has received no fewer than nineteen hundred adoption requests.

The tiny island is located north of Sicily and is 5 kilometers long. It has about a hundred residents and six times as many goats. The animals are increasingly showing up in inhabited areas, where they damage vegetation and gardens. Mayor Riccardo Gullo therefore had enough.

To prevent the goats from having to be culled, he had called on people to adopt one or more. “We could donate as many as nineteen hundred goats, but we have to be choosy now,” says the mayor The Guardian.

Not only in Italy, but also elsewhere in Europe and even the United States and Nigeria, there are people who want to adopt a goat. Once the requests are approved, they can pick up the goats for free.

According to the islanders, the animals were brought to Alicudi by a breeder about twenty years ago. But he abandoned his plans and left his goats to their fate. The animals then reproduced fully.

The residents of Alicudi are skeptical about the feasibility of the plan. “These animals are usually in places that are so difficult to reach that it is difficult to catch them. And how do you get them down? With a helicopter?”