DOGS: ISLA GUADALUPE
DOGS: ISLA GUADALUPE
In the News~
May 21, 1870 [Weekly Alta California]: “A journal of Lower California publishes a statement that a party of Americans lately landed on the Island of Guadalupe, near the coast of Lower California, belonging to the Mexican government and killed there 25,000 wild goats. They chased the goats with dogs to the narrow end of the island, drove them into corrals made with wire, and slaughtered them. The hides are estimated to be worth 50 cents apiece and the tallow of each goat 25 cents. The journal to which we refer there, asks whether Mexico should not recover the value of her property thus taken. We suspect that there must be an exaggeration about the number killed, for the goat-hunting party were from this city, and if they had obtained any great success, the fact would probably have been reported here some months ago. But if the figure is correct, there is nothing for the Mexican Cabinet to do, but to tame and herd the goats, if they are to be claimed as Government property hereafter. Under the general laws, anybody has the right to kill and carry away wild animals, whether descended from tame animals or not.”
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...”
