Creek Running North 大自然 Bieria

August 6, 2007

Bieria

I’ve been wistful the last few days because of a traffic accident that took the lives of 243 of my acquaintances.

Said acquaintances were goats. Said goats were riding to a job site Friday in San Rafael when their truck tipped over, and 243 of 400 in the herd smothered to death within minutes, apparently due to a bad decision by the local cops.

People who live in the Bay Area will likely have met these goats, or at least seen them. They’re used as a more-or-less environmentally benign brush-clearing labor force. They eat native plants, sure, and they’ve been known to move invasive plant seeds by eating them in one spot and excreting them in another. You mostly see them, though, in areas already overrun by invasives, and the herders will keep them on the ranch for three days eating alfalfa after they work in especially seedy surroundings. They work every year on a hillside a block and a half from our house: they were working there the week we moved in in 2002, and I started a yearly tradition of pulling over as I drove past so that Zeke could say hello through the car window for a few minutes.

The driver of the truck was making a turn at seven miles per hour. The load shifted and the truck went over. Reuters has quoted the goats’ owner Terri Oyarzun as saying most of the victims could have survived had the police allowed their release from the overturned trailer.

Police were so concerned with controlling traffic and preventing another accident that they disregarded pleas by the goat’s herder, Oyarzun said. About 150 goats survived, she said.

“Those goats didn’t have to die,” she said. “It wasn’t necessary. We had herding dogs.”

Instead, she had to listen to her livestock screaming for help as they suffocated.

I’m not bashing the cops, really. I can understand why they made the decision they did. It’s just unfortunate and horrible. Poor things.

Posted by: Chris Clarke

Categories:
The Neighborhood

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I used to be sickened by the sight of an empty cattle trailer. That was until I saw a full one overturned by the side of the road.

1
By: microecos
on August 6, 2007
at 10:23 PM

Couldn’t they have stopped the traffic?

Arrrgh, those goats are adorable.

I’m sorry, Chris.

(The survivors must be traumatized. I bet they won’t easily load into that truck again.)

2
By: Lesley
on August 6, 2007
at 11:15 PM

we like the goats, too, and thought this was an awful accident. i remember seeing them [or herds like them] up in tilden park. they clear growth that humans can’t clear well, keep down the fire danger. a family we know keeps 2 goats in their steep back yard up on the ridge; the city gave them a pet waiver because the goats do good work and don’t bother anyone.

[this looks to be a bad fire year. flying down south on sunday, the santa barbara fire was huge and very visible from our plane.]

3
By: kathy a
on August 6, 2007
at 11:21 PM

That’s just . . . horrible. Horrible.

4
By: Ancrene Wiseass
on August 7, 2007
at 01:28 AM

That’s really a damned shame as the deaths were probably entirely unnecessary. Although there may have been some danger in releasing the goats, they probably would have stayed together in a group and been easy enough to herd—especially goats that were accustomed to being moved around, as was the case. I used to have a large herd of dairy goats and took them for walks all around our land. Goats will follow and stick with “lead goats” or with the human that they are most accustomed to being with, especially in what they perceive to be a scary situation. I once had to load my goats into a large trailer to get them out of here when there was an out-of-control brush fire across the road from here, and I can tell you that my goats couldn’t have gotten out of here any faster—they raced into the trailer as soon as I led them to it. Anyhow, my guess is that those goats could have been unloaded and easily walked to a place of safety if the police had have just given them a few minutes by blocking off traffic.

5
By: Bev W
on August 7, 2007
at 10:44 AM

This is the second horrible accident recently where these trailers have tipped and killed hundreds of goats. Seems like there is an inherent flaw in the trailer design and they need to be transported in something else.

6
By: Natalie
on August 7, 2007
at 11:54 AM

I often see how our casual cruelty to animals makes cruelty to our fellow humans easier to stomach. I wish for every goat a peaceful death on a full stomach.

7
By: Amanda Marcotte
on August 7, 2007
at 08:45 PM

Admittedly, that full stomach has often been mine.

8
By: Chris Clarke
on August 7, 2007
at 09:42 PM

Poor goats!

(Though I find myself wondering: how did 400 goats fit into a trailer in the first place?)

9
By: Rana
on August 8, 2007
at 04:30 PM

I had the same question, Rana! Either I’m vastly overestimating the size of the goats (about like this...somewhere between big dogs and small standard ponies yes?), or underestimating the size of the trailer.

10
By: Magniloquence
on August 8, 2007
at 05:17 PM

I’m not going to share your reticence. If I’d been the herd-owner, I’d have found out where those cops live and dumped the bodies in their yards. Donut-eating cruiser-slob thickheads.

11
By: pseudonymous in nc
on August 8, 2007
at 06:21 PM