It is the time of the year when many people’s thoughts, including mine, turn to red deer and their annual rut. The roaring of the stags in the glens, straths and open hillsides seems to be evocative, especially with such an iconic animal as the red deer. Perhaps to many, in some ways, it represents the wildness of the Highlands, as opposed to that hackneyed, and incorrect, word “wilderness”. Yet whilst all this activity in the world of the red deer stags and hinds and their annual cycle there is another event taking place in many parts of the Highlands. It is often overlooked and it is the rutting season of the wild goats as it corresponds roughly with that of the red deer. It is not so widespread compared with red deer as there are very few tribes, yes that is the right word, of such goats in the Highlands. Remarkably the actual numbers of wild goats in the north are decreasing, almost alarmingly, in many areas.
Different books give different names to these naturalised goats. I always think of them as being here from domestic stock introduced or escaped as far back as 3,000 years ago so always refer to them as wild goats. Other sources more often call them feral goats, whilst one recent source coined the phrase of mountain goats. Whatever the source of the goats now living wild in Scotland many have been around a very long time. There may well have been releases of more domesticated goats such as the large numbers brought over from Ireland. A sobering thought that when the great droves of cattle were being taken south there was a reverse movement of goats taking place. Large numbers, and I mean thousands, were brought over from Ireland and must have used the same routes as the cattle drovers used. It is not difficult to see why. The cattle were driven south because there was nothing to feed them on in the winter months. Goats were not so fussy and could just be turfed out onto the hills or the glens to fend for themselves. They are great scavengers and will eat many things that cattle would not touch.
It is an interesting, and disappointing fact, that there are fewer goats in the Highlands now than there have been for centuries. The highlights, as far as their number are concerned , must have been during and after the Highland clearances took place. Very large numbers, and I mean large numbers, were just left out on the hill. Some idea of the scale can be found in the various regional books of the “Statistical Account of Scotland 1791-1799”. In these magnificent books all the different parishes are covered and many indicate what stock they had, including goats. Some parishes had over 1.000 goats whilst most had hundreds. They were only semi-domesticated and spend some of the year on the open hills. When the clearances came many thousands were simply allowed to wander off and these are the source of many of the tribes today.
What is worrying are the numbers of goats being shot out in recent years and readers may be able to help here. One such tribe was on the cliffs on the south west side of Munlochy Bay and they now seem to have all gone. More worrying is the absence of goats in the huge area of countryside between the A9 at Slochd and Lochindorb way to the east. There do not seem to be any goats in these vast areas at all so what has happened to them? Why have they been shot out? It surely could not be their competition with the sheep. Was it just the belief there is a link between ticks and red grouse?