Wild/Feral Goats

We spotted this herd of Wild Goats down in a ravine alongside "Destitution Road" there was 30+. I have seen Wild goats in this area since I was a lad in the late 60's and from what I remember they were well established then.

200 years ago there was over a million domestic goats, belonging to the old British breed, in Scotland and Northern England. As agricultural practices changed, however, the goat became less and less popular. When, in the 1870's, a Victorian goat revival began to reinstate it as 'the poor man's cow', culminating with the founding of the British Goat Society in 1879, no one was by then interested in the old British breed. They were simply too small, hairy and inconveniently horned. What was wanted was a big goat with a short and smooth coat and no horns that gave plenty of milk.

And so it was that foreign breeds were introduced from India, the Middle East and Switzerland. All our domestic breeds of today are descended from these foreign imports, and our primitive breed would have died out completely but for the fact that some escaped or were turned loose on the hills to run wild.

Historical Importance
This is the breed that was brought by the first farmers, was kept by the builders of Stonehenge, changed hands constantly during the Anglo-Saxon invasion and Viking raiding; was the herding goat of the Mediaeval manor, and the mainstay of the Cheddar Cheese industry. We had NO other breed until the late 18th century.

A lot of the above was culled (pardon the expression) from the
British Feral Goat Research Group website