People Practicing Santeria May Be Dumping Headless Goats in the Chattahoochee

{snip} Someone has dumped hundreds of decapitated goats over the past few years.

Channel 2′s Dave Huddleston cruised up the Chattahoochee River with Jason Ulseth, who works for the environmental group the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper.

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“Lately it’s become a lot more frequent, and on Friday we were out here and saw 30 of them floating down the river,” Ulseth said.

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In 2019, Channel 2 Action News did a story about people leaving dead chickens, goats’ heads and coconuts near railroad tracks in metro Atlanta.

It turns out it was part of a religious ceremony for the followers of Santeria, a religion that mixes West African culture with Cuban Catholicism.

Channel 2 talked to a Shango priest in 2019, who explained the significance of the goats.

“We use a he goat as also a victory. Then we use she goat for the baby, for the for also for the blessing. That is the significance of all these animals that we use,”Akinton Shingods Anjoula said.

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The decapitated goats are a public health danger not just for people who fish or play on the Chattahoochee River, but for just about everyone in metro Atlanta.

“This is drinking water for 5 million people, and we all have to do our part to take care of it,” Ulseth said.

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