The sound of something crashing through the underbrush
was the second clue. A moment later, half a dozen flashlights
pointed in the direction of the noise. We expected to see
some of the Island’s feral hogs. Instead, a herd of wild goats
appeared, at least a dozen of them. They trotted into the
open area and stopped, seemingly as puzzled by us as we
were fascinated by them. One of them had long, shaggy hair
that reached to the ground. Another, with shorter hair, had
corkscrew horns the length of a sword. One was black with
curled horns like a ram. Another appeared yellowish. At least
one was brown with white markings, similar to a standard
domestic goat.
This was long before the age of cell phone cameras.
We could only stare and etch the bizarre tableau into our
memories. In “Environmental Inventory of Kiawah Island,”
published in 1975 and based on the efforts of the original
research ecologists, is this statement: “The small population of
goats should be eliminated.” To my knowledge, the goats were
never removed from the Island but were never seen by people
again. Perhaps they still roam the wild areas of Kiawah Island.
The last entry in my field notes from Kiawah in the
1970s was on September 4, 1979. Steve Bennett, Garfield
WINTER/SPRING 2020 • VOLUME 42
Keaton, and I left SREL headed to the coast to see how Island
wildlife would respond to a major storm, Hurricane David.
(Steve later became the state herpetologist with the South
Carolina Department of Natural Resources; Garfield started
a computer company.) When we arrived at the main gate
about 10:00 p.m., we asked the two guards, whom we had met
before, if we could go onto the Island. “It’s all yours,” one of
them said, “we’re going home.”
The scene was surreal. “When we crossed the bridge, the
Kiawah River looked like a bay, more than a half mile across
from shore to shore, and it was flooded into the woods. The
asphalt road was under at least four inches of water all the
way to the Straw Market.” Palm trees were bent like fishing
poles, the tallest ones almost parallel to the ground. Hundreds
of shorebirds stayed on the ground, scurrying around in the
vegetation.
We got out of the vehicle, faced the ocean, and leaned
forward at a 45-degree tilt—propped up by the wind. It was
exhilarating. When a laughing gull we startled flew up from
the ground and was propelled past my head at 80 miles
an hour, we hurried back to the car. Choruses of treefrogs
and toads were the only sounds to be heard above the
howling wind. One objective was to see if snakes came out
in high numbers as often reported for coastal areas during
hurricanes. Since the only snake we saw was a green snake
crossing a road, I cannot support that notion.
On that night in 1979, only three people were on Kiawah
Island, the smallest number of human inhabitants until a
decade later. Kiawah was evacuated in 1989 for Hurricane
Hugo, which devastated the Island. I was old enough by then
to know better than to visit a coastal island for the pleasure
of experiencing a hurricane firsthand. Besides, I’d already
done that.
Wild habitats can still be found on Kiawah. And most
of the native and natural biodiversity is still out there for
anyone to discover. Seek out your own ecological adventures
on what continues to be one of the Atlantic Seaboard’s most
captivating barrier islands. NK
Whit Gibbons is Professor Emeritus
of Ecology, University of Georgia, and
former head of Educational Outreach at
the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory.
He has written numerous scientific
articles and books on ecology. “Their
Blood Runs Cold: Adventures with
Reptiles and Amphibians” (University
of Alabama Press) includes an account of the discovery of and
explanation for the enormous slider turtles on Kiawah Island.
It’s available on Amazon (whitgibbons.com/books/).