It's not how many "San Clemente Island goats" you can produce and register, to save the breed. It's how much of the "San Clemente Island goat breed characteristics" can you keep and reproduce, to save the breed!
The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC), lists the San Clemente Island Goat as a Critical Breed. A Crittcal listing means that there are fewer than 200 annual North American registrations and an estimated population fewer than 2,000 global.
There are fewer Purebred San Clemente Island goats every year. Yes, there are breeders raising SCI goats but many of these goats are "Main Land" crosses, meaning they were crossed with a domestic goat breed of some kind after leaving the San Clemente Island.
There were a few domestic goats introduced onto the Island in the late 1800's, early 1900's, and they did cross breed, on the Island. Even these cross breeds were still "San Clemente Island Goats", meaning even the cross breeds were of the Island at that point. The domestic breed characteristics of the cross breed goats were vanishing with time.
The Spanish goat that was planted on the San Clemente Island and other Islands, for a ready meat source for ship crews, sometime in the late 1500's by ships exploring for Spain had very definite breed characteristics. These breed characteristics pass on and dominate if given a chance. These breed characteristics are what should represent the San Clemente Island Goat breed to this day.
These spanish goats did very well on the San Clemente Island until around the turn of the 20th century.To put this more into context. The goats and the island were in balance until large sheep herds were moved onto the island from mainland California in the late 1800's. The sheep, being domestic and profitable, were not considered the ones causing the new damage to the island. Nor was the US navy which became responsible for the San Clemente Island in 1934 even though they used it for bombing practice and gunnery range.
The Navy citing the Endangered Species Act, declaired that the SCI goats were responsible for eating four species of protected plants, which was the food for two threatened species of birds and an endangered lizard.The Navy said the state and federal environmental agencies had called on them to comply with the law and remove the goats. Complete elimination of the goats was planned.
The US Navy allowed hunting of the goats but this was not removing them fast enough so the Navy proposed to shoot the remaining goats. This idea was blocked by The Fund for Animals, a New York based animal welfare group. What really riled the animal group was the Navy's use of the Endangered Species Act to justify killing the goats. One of the two endangered birds (Loggerheaded Shrike) includes the endangered lizard and also the other endangered bird in it's diet. With their first rescue effort in the mid-1980's, 871 goats were brought off of the island and a second rescue was set up. It must be said here that it was never the intention of the Fund to save the San Clemente Goat Breed, only the individual animals and a very strict adoption plan was set up. The adoption contract forbade the breeding of the SCI goats and any off spring that did occure was to be returned to The Fund for Animals. Unfortunately there was nothing in the contract prohibiting their being used for human consumption and according to one source that was there, many were taken just for that purpose. The Director of ALBC (then AMBC) at that time, Elizabeth Henson, wrote to Cleveland Amory, Director of the Fund for Animals, "I do feel it would be a tragedy if you were to save all these individuals but allow the breed to go extinct." Eventually the Fund did allow for up to 200 head to be resettled without the stipulation against breeding.
With the San Clemente Island goat the color pattern is the most noticeable thing people see. All the goats are marked the same, with variations in the base color from light brown "Tan" to dark red "Amber" but the pattern "markings" throughout the head, neck, and body should stay quite constant. It should be said here that "Amber" may even appear BLACK but is still amber and would have a red tint in direct sunlight except for the cape area. The only other colors on the animal are black and brown. A few white hairs are permitted throughout the coat. White spots however are either from outside crosses or inbreeding to long. The Cape is always black, there is black stripping on the dorsal, legs and flanks. Shown in the photos. The pattern is always the same on both sides of the animal. All SCI's, bucks and does have tan to amber (depending on their base coat color) face stripes and chin dots. Tan to amber cheek/jaw patches should also be present. This seems to vary a little. The neck should be all black into the cape. The underside of the neck (the throat) should be tan to amber in accordance to the base coat color. Animals that are all black, even when clipped, except for face stripes and/or brown on the legs and escutcheon area are probably crossbreeds! Most all SCI's are somewhat tri-colored. The bucks have black beards usually with a brown/amber strip through it.
The horns are a great way to get an idea about the purity of any San Clemente buck in question. San Clemente Island bucks have a very light horn with a set that is airy and open, almost fragile looking. The horn set should start to spread from the base, or within a couple of inches, and keep spreading and trailing outward giving a light airy look. The horns should twist about a half to three quarter turn to the tip depending on the animals age. Even a full turn is possible if the buck lives long enough on good forage and doesn't break them. Another interesting thing about the San Clemente Buck, is they have very little, to no Buck Smell even during rut. Yes they do urinate on themselves and they do have a very strong urin smell but anyone that has been around, especially Pygmy Bucks during rut, will notice a distinct difference. This may indicate a lack of a scent gland in the San Clemente goat.
San Clemente Island goat does also have a horn that breaks away early from the base in most cases. Doe horns are light to begin with so it is much harder to define "light and airy". This then goes back to you as the breeder/keeper and what that doe produceses as offspring. If the doe is a first time freshener, or a first time Freshener for you, and you have a puredred SCI buck that has all of the SCI breed characteristics, and her offspring has good breed characteristics, color, and markings and no white then the doe is working to preserve the breed. A 6 month and 12 month check of the does offspring will confirm this. No San Clemente Island new born should be registered (even if out of registered parents) before six months of age and preferably not before a year. This gives time for the horns to show how they will set and the non-breed characteristics to show up in bucks and does.
Before the registeries many San Clemente goat keepers got SCI goats from other San Clemente goat keepers who eagerly jumped on the bandwagon to "Save the San Clemente Island Goats" and found out they were unable to handle feral goats. Some of these were crossbreds by that time due to pen jumping, etc. Any information on possible "unintentional breeding" was most likely not passed on to the new keeper. As "Breeder/Keepers" wanted to know just how many San Clemente's survived the transition to the domestic life after the rescue efforts the registeries were set up. The registeries required a photograph of the animal being registered and because the photos sent in looked like San Clemente goats, some crossbreds were registered.
At the time of the rescue efforts the intention of the "Funds for Animals" was to save the San Clemente goats from being slaughtered on the island, not to save the breed. Therefore the males were neutered as they came off of the island. The buck kids from does that were already pregnant when removed from the Island became the only source of saving the breed.
The Raza Moncaina goat in Spain bears the exact markings and characteristics as the San Clemente Island goat and is probably the linage pool from which the Spaniards drew their goats from to populate the Islands as they explored the "New World".
The numbers of the Raza Moncaina goat are no better than that of the San Clemente Island goat. The A.R.A.M.O. "ASOCIACION DE GRANADEROS DE CAPRINO DE RAZA MONCAINA" is working hard to preserve what there is left of the Raza Moncaina goat.
Their Web site is located at < http://aranda.galeon.com/revista/razaMoncaina.htm >. You will either have to copy and paste the link from here, or type it, into your Location Bar. It is a very slow and sometimes alusive link so be patient. It took my wife, Sheryl Bernal, 10 years of searching and following every source of information she could find or was given to locate these goats, so please enjoy.