Cleveland Amory

A helicopter crew armed with a net-firing device was scheduled to start a monthlong operation today to rescue hundreds of wild goats on Navy-owned San Clemente Island. The animal rights organization conducting the program hopes to trap more than half the estimated 1,200 to 1,500 goats on the island, about 60 miles off the coast of San Diego, and return them to the mainland, where they will be offered for adoption.

The latest attempt by an animal rights group to rescue a herd of wild goats on San Clemente Island ended Friday with 550 of the creatures rounded up, but with no final decision made on the fate of those remaining. Early this year, the U.S.

The number of wild goats captured on San Clemente Island since Friday passed the 100 mark Monday, and the head of the animal rights group conducting the rescue said he is encouraged by the progress. Cleveland Amory of the Fund for Animals said only 500 or 600 goats remained on the Navy-owned island as of last week. "We still have almost two weeks to go for them," he said, adding that the retrieval of more than 100 in four days is "very encouraging."

Despite an appeal by an animal rights group for extra time to continue trapping wild goats on San Clemente Island, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy said Friday the animals will be shot from a helicopter beginning Thursday. "The Navy seems determined to shoot," said Cleveland Amory, founder and head of the Fund for Animals. "I called (Secretary of Defense Caspar W.) Weinberger Thursday, and could only get to a secretary who wouldn't say much."

A hunt aimed at eliminating wild goats from the west end of Santa Catalina Island has been called off a month ahead of schedule because enough goats have been killed to accomplish the goal of protecting the island's native ecology, officials said Wednesday. A team of four hunters hired by the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy stopped shooting Tuesday, after killing an estimated 2,000 goats in two weeks.

From the Rockies to the Appalachians, hunters are helping the hungry by donating deer, elk, and other wild animals they kill to food banks. For Iris Bostic, who supports a family of four on her Social Security check, the two-pound packages of ground venison she brings home from the Mountaineer Food Bank mean she doesn't have to go without meat. "We wouldn't eat red meat at all if it wasn't for the free deer," said Bostic, 64, who lives outside Charleston, W.Va.

Animal preservationists announced Tuesday that the Navy has issued another reprieve to the wild goats of San Clemente Island, indefinitely postponing plans to slaughter the animals and allowing resumption of a rescue program. The killing by gunfire had been set to start at dawn Thursday. The Navy has argued that it has to remove the wild animals from the island, used largely for bombing practice, to comply with the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

The latest attempt by an animal rights group to rescue a herd of wild goats on San Clemente Island ended Friday with 550 of the creatures rounded up but with no final decision on the fate of those remaining. Early this year the U.S. Navy, which owns the island about 60 miles west of San Diego and uses it most of the year for shelling and bombing practice, had planned to shoot the goats.

A helicopter crew armed with a net-firing device was scheduled to start a monthlong operation early this morning to rescue hundreds of wild goats on Navy-owned San Clemente Island. The animal rights organization conducting the program hopes to trap more than half the estimated 1,200 to 1,500 goats on the island, about 60 miles off the coast of San Diego, and return them to the mainland, where they will be offered for adoption.