HONOLULU (WSVN) – A baby goat was in a bad situation, stuck on the edge of a cliff in Hawaii for four days, but just as hope began to fade, the power of social media intervened.
The calf was stuck on a mountain in West Oahu. Officials from the Fire Department, Humane Society and Department of Land and Resources all said they were unable to save the animal.
But just as the prospects for the goat became increasingly grim, the power of social media came into focus.
Govinda Hansen of Kailua described when she first heard about the goat.
“(My husband) saw the Hawaii News Now Instagram post and he said, ‘Look, there’s a goat, looks like it’s stuck,’” she said. “I love baby animals, or animals in general, so I thought, ‘We have to get this goat.’”
Hansen was not alone. Avid hiker Caleb Morrison said the situation was brought to his attention online.
“A swarm of people messaged me on Hawaii News Now, saying, ‘Go save this goat, Caleb,’” he said.
“And then Caleb also had climbing gear, so I thought, ‘We can do it, let’s go get him,’” Hansen said.
“I’m on my way to rescue a baby goat,” Hansen said in a cellphone video recorded prior to the rescue.
So off they went: Hansen, her husband Ben, her brother-in-law Travis and Morrison. The enthusiastic hikers carefully made their way up the steep terrain
“We didn’t know exactly how big the cliff was, and we wanted to get in there as quickly as possible, just because it had been there for four days. It already seemed super skittish,” Morrison said.
Once rescuers were within range of the goat, they used an apple and a drone to distract it.
“And just left him sitting there and oh, boom, grabbed him,” Morrison said.
It took 45 minutes to bring the baby goat down.
“Look at this little goat,” Hansen said in a cellphone video.
“So he just hugged the little guy all the way down the mountainside,” Morrison said.
“I was very relieved and happy that we got him safely,” Hansen said, “and we named him Bala. Bala means ‘white in colour’. He is beautiful.”
Bala is now in Aloha Sanctuary, finally safe.
‘And he’s happy. We put him in the grass and, um, it’s just chilled out there, so he seems to be doing fine,” Hansen said.
Shelter staff said Bala drank an entire bottle of milk immediately after arriving and then danced in the grass.
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