Tangles of Care: Killing Goats to Save Tortoises on the Galápagos Islands

A large-scale mammal eradication campaign on the Galápagos Islands, involving the culling of over 200,000 goats to protect endangered tortoises, revealed that conservation efforts can be ethically complex and contentious. While aimed at saving endemic species, the intervention sparked debates among residents about competing forms of care for nonhuman animals. The study highlights the biological, ecological, and political implications of such actions, challenging the binary logic of success or failure in conservation. It advocates for a more nuanced approach to multispecies coexistence in the Anthropocene.

Bocci, P. (2017). Tangles of Care: Killing Goats to Save Tortoises on the Galápagos Islands. Cultural Anthropology, 32(3), 424–449. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca32.3.08