An administrative judge on Wednesday dismissed a case initi­ated by nine goat owners in Saba who wanted the government to immedi­ately halt its controversial culling pro­gramme.

The goat owners based their case on a government letter issued in May 2021. This was the start of what has become more than three years of re­peated culling efforts under the gov­ernment’s livestock control project, where thousands of goats have been shot and killed by local and foreign hunters.

According to a government press release issued last year, the environ­mental project aims to eradicate the free-roaming goat population, which had been estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000 animals. Their unin­hibited grazing has been blamed for erosion and the destruction of home gardens, particularly during periods of drought.

Although only described in positive terms on government social media pages, the project has been a point of frustration for a cross-section of Saba residents. Many local goat owners see the cull as the end of traditional hunting and animal husbandry practices, a sentiment captured in a “Goat Lives Matter” bill­board that has been put up in the village of The Bottom.

Wednesday’s three-hour hear­ing discussed the goat owners’ economic, cultural and ethi­cal concerns at length, but the judge ultimately ruled that the case cannot be decided in ad­ministrative court because the 2021 letter is not an official government decision.

The administrative court’s rejection does not automati­cally spell the end of the goat owners’ legal battle, as they still have the possibility to file a new case in civil court.

Professional cowboys

Last month, Saba’s govern­ment announced a fresh round of “intensified hunting”, bring­ing in hunters from as far away as New Zealand for the six-week job.

Remco Stomp, the goat own­ers’ lawyer, argued that his cli­ents have lost “a large amount of money” because these “pro­fessional cowboys” have shot hundreds of their animals.

Stomp claimed that the im­ported hunters have been engaging in unethical prac­tices, including using automatic weapons. One of his clients told the court that the foreign­ers have even shot pregnant goats and left their carcases to rot in the bush.

Several goat owners told the court that they have been de­nied access to their own land, as the government closed off hiking trails near the designat­ed hunting grounds.

If the livestock control project successfully eradicates feral goats, Sabans, who have a tra­dition of allowing their animals to graze freely and hunting them on their property, will be deprived of their cultural heri­tage, Stomp argued.

Stomp told the court that untagged free-roaming goats still have owners, adding that Saba is so small that “everyone knows whose goat belongs to whom.”

One goat owner questioned why the project has been targetting animals “in the wild that do not bother anybody,” while another said the idea should be to only get rid of goats causing nuisance in the villages.

Stomp pushed back against the claim that free-roaming goats cause severe erosion, questioning why the issue has only been raised recently when the animals were introduced to the island more than 300 years ago.

Additionally, Stomp argued that the local government has unlawfully applied the Island Ordinance on identification and registration of livestock and pets, which stipulates that roaming livestock will be “captured or culled if they reason­able cannot be caught.”

According to Stomp, the government did not first try to catch the roaming goats, as required by the local law, but went straight to culling, the most severe solution.

Impossible to apply

Sarah van der Horn, who leads the livestock control proj­ect, told the court that it is im­possible to fully apply the local law because the government does not have the facilities to house thousands of captured goats.

Additionally, the goats are often roaming in areas that are hard to access and the feral animals will not allow anyone to get close enough to the grab them.

Van der Horn told the court that there has not been a single complaint from goat owners about foreigners hunting ani­mals on their property, or that one of their goats had been mistakenly killed.

A member of the current hunting team disputed the use of a machine gun, saying that all of their weapons are semi­automatic. He did confirm that the hunters arc firing larger-calibre bullets than locals use, but said this was only in an ef­fort to “make a clean kill” and prevent the animal unnecessar­ily suffering a slow and painful death.

Government’s lawyer Mayesi Hammond pointed out that the Island Ordinance puts an obligation on goat owners to care for their animals and place them in pens. Instead, many owners neglect their animals and simply allow them to starve to death during a drought, she argued.

Hammoud disputed that hunting free-roaming goats is a part of Saba’s cultural heritage, arguing that the practice only emerged in the 1960s.

Additionally, Hammoud argued that Saba’s govern­ment has been implementing several initiatives to stimulate agriculture and sustainable animal husbandry, countering the claim that the goat cull will negatively affect Saba’s food security.

Island Governor Jonathan Johnson told the court that the project’s “bounty period” is still open, which means the owners can kill some of their goats “tomorrow” and receive compensation in line with the foreign hunters.

Johnson said there have been multiple discussions about the project with affected goat owners, including as far back as September 2020. He also pointed out that one of the plaintiffs had previously par­ticipated in the project as a lo­cal hunter.

The Daily Herald.