‘In Goats We Trust’
‘In Goats We Trust’ When Mount Etna in Sicily rumbled this spring, news outlets around the world flashed dramatic photos of lava and ash. But Martin Wikelski was skeptical. The biologist, who directs the Department of Migration at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, checked in with his most trusted forecasters: Twelve goats grazing on Etna’s slopes. These goats have worn his lightweight tracking tags for more than a decade. Before each of the last seven major eruptions, they’d alerted the scientists with unusually frantic behavior. This time, they were calm. Further research showed that the widely reported eruption had looked visually striking but was actually minor and caused no damage. “The goats were right,” Wikelski says from his office near Konstanz, Germany. “Therefore we still say, ‘in goats we trust.’” A monarch butterfly carries a tiny transmitter that is intended to provide information about its flight behavior. Credit: MPIAB_MaxCine. Wikelski is the innovator…
