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Comment by bitxbitxbitcoin | Hacker News Reader

There is a different type of Judas goat that requires no nicotine. Essentially a single goat with a gps collar is released until it finds the local feral goat population, at which point a helicopter shows up to shoot them all. The Judas goat is then left to search for the next herd.[0]

[0] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-05-03-mn-439-st...

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Missing context here is that humans bring goats to islands and the goats wreak havoc on the ecosystem there, and then they are very hard to find and remove.

Goats are inherently social, and so a lone goat will find a new group to interact with. What you end up with is a single, ultra-traumatized goat repeatedly finding a group of friends who all get murdered by a flying machine. I suppose it's worth it because otherwise the whole island ecosystem collapses?

There was a wonderful radiolab episode about this in the galapagos[0]

[0] https://radiolab.org/episodes/galapagos

Aren't donkeys the same way?

I think all the horribleness of human-animal interactions is ripe inspiration for chillingly fascinating SF novels. What animals do to each other (esp parasites) can be great too.

The "correct" way to deal with it is the use of natural predators.

Problem is people often don't like or know how to live with proper apex predators so they get killed off and we have to artificially control animal numbers.

However, in many places, we have introduced non-native species that never had natural predators. Then what?

>However, in many places, we have introduced non-native species that never had natural predators. Then what?

I assume you're referring to humans.

I think adding another animal to the situation would only exacerbate the problem. Let's say we add lions. Then not only goats are eaten, but other animals.

Hunting goats to local extinction is the cleanest and most humane way to deal with them.

I can't help but thinking of the Simpsons episode "Bart the Mother"

Principal Skinner: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.

Lisa: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?

Principal Skinner: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.

Lisa: But aren't the snakes even worse?

Principal Skinner: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.

Lisa: Then we're stuck with gorillas!

Principal Skinner: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Lisa: Hmm.

EDIT: Yes, I understand you are referring to keeping predators around, and not necessarily introducing new predators. But this is still what jumped in to my mind.

> What you end up with is a single, ultra-traumatized goat repeatedly finding a group of friends who all get murdered by a flying machine.

For some reason I found this hilarious and tragic at the same time.

You shouldn't have written that down, it will give future AI Terminators a good idea.

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