Goats on the Presidio

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As I child I distinctly remember seeing goats in the bunker areas adjacent to Doyle Drive in the Presidio(if you were to go under Doyle Drive where Incinerator Road and Crissy Field Ave. meet, this would take you into the area I am referring). This would have been while the Army was still in residence.

Although my father says that he does not recall goats, he did, however, give a couple of reasons as to why there may have been goats present on the Presidio: (1) vegetation managment, and (2) that the veterinary clinic was doing more than merely helping sick animals (the implication was animal testing....)

Can anyone verify that these goats were not merely phantoms of my imagination?!!!?? Thank you!

J Jarvis jj_sf@hotmail.com

-- Joanne Jarvis (jj_sf@hotmail.com), May 08, 2000

Answers

Joanne,

Your eyes didn't deceive you except for one thing: those were weren't goats, they were sheep. During the Vietnam war the Army briefly kept a small herd of them at Battery Blaney for medical experimentation at nearby Letterman Hospital. "The Star Presidian" newspaper ran an article on the sheep sometime around 1969-1971 for precisely the same reason you remember them -- motorists on Doyle Drive were doing double-takes when they spotted the critters.

-- John Martini (martini@slip.net), May 08, 2000.


Thankx for your question and answer. Reading this jogged my memory. I often drive by and remember seeing sheep myself. Since one of my parents were always driving, I don't think they ever saw them. I seemed to remember always thinking i must then be the only one seeing them. Even tho they seemed real, I think as I got older I thought it could have just been a child's imagination. thankx for proving we weren't crazy!

kim~

-- kim forwood (misskim@slip.net), August 08, 2000.


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