Italian Island’s Goat Bounty: Islanders Offer Free Goats to Anyone Who Can Catch Them

The small and remote Italian island of Alicudi, home to just 100 residents, is overrun by goats that now outnumber the human population by a ratio of about six to one.

Desperate to address the situation, the local mayor, Riccardo Gullo, is urging anyone willing to adopt a goat to take them off the island.

Goats were introduced to the island just two decades ago, according to the regional authorities in Sicily. They were released by a local farmer and allowed to roam freely. However, the goats bred and multiplied and have now overwhelmed the inhabitants of Alicudi who are outnumbered by the animals.

Italian island urges people to adopt goats

Mr Gullo explained that the “adopt-a-goat” program was initiated due to the local authority’s decision not to cull the goats. The goats have increasingly encroached on residential areas, entering homes, feeding on vegetation in public parks, private gardens, and hedges, and attempting to scale stone walls that often collapse under their weight.

The scheme is scheduled to run until April 10, however, the mayor plans to extend it until all of the goats are adopted. Those wishing to adopt up to 50 goats have been instructed to make an official request to the island community.

Prospective goat adopters must email the local authorities and pay a stamp fee of €16 to make the request official.

“Ideally, we would like to see people try to domesticate the animals rather than eat them,” Mr Gullo said. However, the authorities have no plans to monitor the goats after they are adopted.

The scheme has already proven popular according to Mr Gullo. “We have heard from dozens of people since we first announced this,” the mayor said.

Once a request for adoption has been approved, those wishing to acquire any goats have 15 days to catch them.

Goats have also run amok in Greece

The image of a shepherd striding across the mountains of Greece watching over a flock of goats or sheep is an iconic one. One Greek shepherd, Maria Retsa, even went viral on TikTok after showing her daily life managing livestock in the Greek countryside.

However, some parts of Greece have faced similar problems to the Italian island of Alicudi, where the goat population has exceeded reasonable numbers.

In 2019, for example, it was reported that on the Greek island of Samothraki, in the north Aegean Sea, goats began to pose an imminent threat to the natural environment as a result of overgrazing.

As in Alicudi, the goat population on Samothraki grew to outnumber the human inhabitants. Only 3,000 human inhabitants dwelled on the island in 2019, whereas about 45,000 goats roamed across Samothraki.