Featured Alien: Domestic Goat

Scientific Name: Capra hircus

How It Came To Hawai‘i :

Captain Cook brought the goat to Hawai‘i in 1778.

Impact Since Its Arrival:

By the mid-1800s many wild goats roamed the islands. They moved into native forests where they trampled the ground cover, and ate shrubs and the seedlings of native plants. Without ground cover, fertile topsoil was lost through the action of the wind and rain. Such erosion has had lasting and disastrous effects on the entire ecosystem.

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