Goats on the go: How TikTok trails for visitors are forcing the herds down mountain

Calls for respect, not culls, as 'magnificent' creatures face ever-growing pressures

- By ANDREW FORGRAVE Countryside and Tourism Editor [e-mail]

wild Welsh mountain goats is sometimes mistaken as cries for help by walkers, leading to false call-outs for mountain rescue teams (Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team)

UNTIL the end of the 18th century, wild goats were common across North Wales, from Anglesey across to Wrexham.

As well as supplying meat, milk, tallow and skins for local people, they fascinated early tourists for whom they became both a Welsh icon and, at times, a source of ridicule.

For landowners, timber was of much great value, so it was hardly surprising many disliked the pesky plantation-nibbling animals. Tenants were banned from keeping them, and Thomas Pennant wrote of a farmer who snapped off his goats' teeth to preserve his trees.

He also suggested numbers were declining because goat-hair wigs were falling out of fashion.

Over time, people became less dependent on them for their survival and, as land was developed, populations dwindled still further. For the survivors, sanctuary was found in Gwynedd's remote mountain valleys and, more recently, in disused slate quarries.

Today the Welsh mountain goat is a seen as a magnificent, beautiful and slightly quirky addition to the heartland landscapes they've roamed since the last ice age nearly 10,000 years ago.

Yet old tensions remain and new ones have sprung up, not least the rise of offtrack tourism.

Watching it unfold is goat watcher John Horrigan, who runs a dedicated Facebook page celebrating the goggle-eyed animals. As he lives near the former Dinorwig slate quarry, he's well placed to chart the impact of the heritage site's rising popularity on the area's two herds.

"In recent years fewer old goats have been dying off because winters have been less harsh," he said. "Those that do, tend to be around 30-years-old. It's led to an increase in numbers, but I'd say the population here is fairly stable as a difficult winter will even things out.