In 1934, San Clemente Island off the coast of California came under U.S. Navy control, inheriting a landscape that included thousands of feral goats descended from animals introduced by Spanish explorers and colonists centuries earlier. The goats had become a serious ecological threat, stripping native vegetation, accelerating soil erosion and contributing to the decline and extinction of several endemic plant species. Their removal was widely regarded as a conservation success. However, later genetic analyses revealed that the population possessed an unexpectedly distinctive genetic heritage, reshaping scientists' understanding of the goats and their place in conservation history.
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