Lake Benton — Jerry Gauquie of Lake Benton is part of a nationwide effort to pull the San Clemente Island goat breed from the brink of extinction. Gauquie, a construction worker and rural landowner who lives near this southwestern Minnesota town, thinks saving this unusual breed is an adventure as well as a service to future generations.

“I had been looking for something like this for quite awhile,” he said. “I spent a lot of time on the internet and made a bunch of phone calls. A few years ago I located some on farms in Massachusetts that were for sale. So, I went and got them.”

Traveling to Massachusetts to get some rare goats was part of the adventure. So is being part of the network of people dedicated to saving the breed.

A year ago there were just over 400 known San Clemente Island goats. That’s double the number in 2007, according to John Carroll, a Nebraska man who is part of the SCI goat rescue network made up of individuals, zoos and living museums.

“The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy considers them the most critically rare domestic breed of goats in the country,” Carroll said.

“I bought them before they counted them,” Gauquie said. “I knew they were rare but I figured there were a couple thousand of them. Now they say there will be about 500 by the end of this year. They want all the animals that can be bred to be bred. If they aren’t, they are afraid they will disappear.”

Breeding doesn’t always assure survival. Two of the three kids from Gauquie’s bred does from Massachusetts were lost. The third, a buck, was born prematurely and was a bottle kid. He never gained his full size.

But Gauquie is ready to try again this fall.

“This fall I will breed five does to my two bucks,” he said. “Next spring, or summer, I’ll sell the kids as a breeding group to someone who wants to get into this conservation effort.”

San Clemente Island goats were locally plentiful as recently as 40 years ago. An estimated 15,000 were on San Clemente Island, located off the coast of southern California, in 1972. At that time the owner of the island, the U.S. Navy, began an extermination program. By 1980 an estimated 4,000 goats still remained on the island.

To continue more effectively with the goat population removal, the Navy proposed a shooting program to be conducted from helicopters. The helicopter slaughter was blocked in court by the animal advocacy group, Fund for Animals. Instead, under the court decision, goat trappers were brought in to remove approximately 3,000 goats from the island. Most of the goats were adopted out by Fund for Animals with agreements that the new owners would not breed them. Other San Clemente goats went directly from the barges that brought them off the island to individuals and farms.

Had the 3,000 goats been capable of breeding there would likely be substantially more SCI goats today.

“The Navy neutered all the bucks,” Carroll said. “The only bucks we had were from the females that became pregnant on the island and kidded off the island. We were in a buck shortage for a long time and that’s part of a genetic bottleneck we’ll be facing in the future.”

The Navy’s reason for eliminating the goats from San Clemente Island is connected to the mystery of the goats. Carroll asserts that the early Spaniards brought them to the island. Since they had been there for 400 years, the island’s ecology had adapted to them, Carroll said. In the 1970s and 1980s they were not suddenly a threat to San Clemente Island’s ecology.

“Goats were first introduced to the island from a feral population that was imported from Santa Catalina to San Clemente Island in 1875,” the ALBC said on its website.

The Navy’s side of the story is that, having been on the island for less than 100 years, an exploding population of goats was destroying the island’s ecology. Thus, they undertook the removal program.

How long San Clemente Island goats had been on the island is still a matter of debate. Their origins in America are even more mysterious. Carroll asserts that they are of Spanish origin, and are related to the rare Raza Moncaina goat in Spain.

The official ALBC position seems to be, however, that SCI goats are not originally Spanish and that their origins are unknown. Their website refers to genetic research as the basis for that claim. However the website scigoats.org, which Carroll said is the glue that holds the growing breeder network together, appears to have more up-to-date information on ALBC’s genetic research.

“Recently, Phil Sponenberg from the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, working with Spain, has been looking at goat DNA,” scigoats.org said. “At first, the results were very confusing: it looked as if San Clemente Island goats were not Iberian at all. Their DNA is so far off in left field that it looked as if Alpine, Boers and Saanens were more closely related to Spanish goats than were San Clemente Island goats. Recent findings, however, show that San Clemente Island goats are indeed of Iberian origin, but the genetic drift from their ancestors is so great, they’re barely the same goat anymore. Is it possible that this could have happened within the past 500 years? Yes, according to Dr. Sponenberg. But they are so distinct from other Spanish goats that they certainly need to be conserved as a separate breed.”

The breed Carroll, Gauquie and others, have set out to conserve is relatively small although slightly larger than dwarf breeds. They are fine-boned and deer-like, and most have gentle temperaments with excellent mothering abilities. San Clemente Island goats are typically red or tan with characteristic black markings. Gauquie said he’s seen black, cream and even a rare white variation, however.

Gauquie likes the SCI goats because of their gentle friendly nature. He also appreciates that fact that the bucks don’t smell during breeding season.

“You don’t know you have a buck in the place until you get 10 feet from them,” he said.

San Clemente Island goats have potential for commercial purposes, according to Gauquie and Carroll. Gauquie points out that they have a high level of parasite resistance. Carroll said that their milk is high in butterfat, giving them potential as dairy goats. He thinks they may have a secondary potential as meat goats.

To find out more about SCI goats, log on to http://scigoats.org.