DOGS: ISLA GUADALUPE

DOGS: ISLA GUADALUPE

In the News~

July 9, 1877 [SBMP]: “...Bearing straight down on me, at an angle of something less than forty-five degrees, I saw two most extraordinary-looking human beings on foot, one leading a burro and the other a sorry-looking California horse, while another burro was driven before and a shepherd dog followed.. The inhabitants of this romantic retreat of these seekers after the Silver Fleece are, besides the modern Argonauts, themselves, the burros, mustang cavallo [caballo/horse], dog, chickens, cats, eagles, and numberless little singing birds that fly and jump about everywhere, even on the mess-table and the heads of the fellows around the festive board..”

July 14, 1877 [SBMP]: “...The common goats are the main reliance of the islanders for meat food. And it is good, as I can testify of my own personal knowledge. The flesh of ewes and kids is sweet, tender, and of gamey flavor. No man, not even an epicure, need suffer for food so long as he can get goat meat such as the Guadalupe Island grows. It would go off at the Arlington—as venison. The manner of catching the wild goats is curious and interesting. In Spring valley several miles of wing fences have been constructed of brush and poles, so arranged as to make funnel-shaped enclosures, the small ends terminating in corrals near headquarters. Into the broad mouths of these fence-tunnels the goats are carefully driven by a line of men and dogs, and gradually urged forward into corrals, where they are confined till the old bucks have been slaughtered, the young ones castrated, and the ewes and kids marked, when they are allowed to go at large again...”