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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Mountain Goats (Oreamnos americanus)

Looking rather scruffy while they are shedding their heavy winter coats, here are a couple of Mountain Goats (Oreamnos americanus) with some of their kids. The dense wool from winter coats is wonderfully warm and soft and is much prized by weavers. These are large wild goats that clamber about the steep mountainsides with amazing agility. They are actually more closely related to antelope than to domestic goats and are much larger than the latter. We came across this group quite close to the highway near Olalla, British Columbia. Of course I took about a hundred photos of them, a few more of which I'll share later.

6 comments:

SRQ said...

Wonderful capture. Those babies are adorable! And I like that you can see all of their winter coats shedding. That's so neat you saw them from the highway.

Anna said...

I love how that one kid is staring straight at you, "Busted!"

Dean Lewis said...

Had never heard of Olalla before, and Google-map searching, see you are doing some real off-the-beaten-path type exploring. What fun ! The weather is finally summerish.

Anonymous said...

With my surname being "goat" if translated into English,this was for sure of interest, seeing some distant family members. Nice picture indeed ! Please have a good Sunday.

daily athens

JoJo said...

*squeals* Lookit the adorable little babies!!!!

Leeds daily photo - Paul said...

Cute goats, I may be wrong but I feel sure that that are no wild goats here in England. Saw a couple yesterday, but they were a childrens attraction.