UKC

We stopped off briefly at the crag yesterday, and encountered 6 dead goats (5 adults & a kid) by the path at the base of the Great Wall & Lower Central Wall. Including one impaled in the birch tree just right of Brute.

Suspect this is a repeat of the landowner taking it upon himself to eradicate the goats in order to encourage natural tree regeneration - the argument put forward when the landowner annihilated the majority of the goat population on the crags about 20 years ago.

Anyone know anything about this? Couldn't see any signs of gunshot wounds on any of the carcasses, but there was evidence of fresh rockfall scars at the base, though nothing affecting any routes.

This must have been a recent occurrence - not too smelly at the moment, though unless the carcasses are removed promptly, the aroma throughout the summer will become fetid.

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why would a landowner impale a goat on a tree in order to kill it, or after killing it? Isn't it more likely that they just fell down the crag in a rockfall?

Could have been deliberately / accidentally driven over the top by a dog off lead..?

the going rate to pay for a bit of Goat Stalking is £100 per stalk with around - it varies - £30-£50 per Goat shot, and then the meat price on top of that (£100 for a decent sized adult).

if the landowner has thrown them all over a cliff he's diddled himself out the best part of a grand...

its a lot easier to lease the rights to a stalker and pocket some cash.

The goat had fallen the height of the crag & become impaled on the branch, breaking the branch. This is a few metres out from the base of the crag.

The dead goats are at about 100m intervals, so definitely not the result of a single rockfall incident. All the other carcasses are in the vicinity of the path contouring beneath the base of the crag - about 30-40m out from the crag base. 

We climb here fairly regularly, and occasionally come across the odd dead goat - perhaps once a year or so. Two might be a coincidence, but not six, all around the same time...

I've only been there a few times, but many years ago (Summer 1984) the place was littered with carcasses, at least 8 I suppose.   We rather thought that the foolhardly beasts had been grazing where the grass got steeper and stepper.....

Has it been snowey and cold around there recently? Could they possibly have slipped and fallen, in indiuvidual incidents, over the space of the last month or two and the reason they have not got smelly be because they have been in the freezer so to speak?

Had a similar situation a few weeks ago at a crag near Stirling, I found 5 dead stags probably only a few days old , all healthy looking beasts no gunshots, all with large sets of antlers. All dead within a 100 metres of each other. They hadn’t fallen of the top of a crag, but it was a really strange situation to find. 

Lightning could do that.

They are all members of a cult, and this is a mass suicide

Might be the result of the hard winter?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-43803852

Or nerve agent...

I wonder if a family of goats had been foraging on the glacis at the top of the crag when it was snow covered and the whole lot avalanched. That would explain a number being killed at once and that they were a distance from the base of the crag.

I think the goats are more likely to have been murdered than the deer.  You can tell by all the trolling.

Are you the same Gary Latter of Scottish rock fame ?

If so ,  I like the books.

Sorry to tangent away from the topic.

During harsh winters in Scotland it’s not at all unusual to find dead deer at the base of crags the following spring. I’m not sure if the cause is avalanche from the top or foraging for food and loosing footing on the icy surface. Do you remember all the dead deer at the base of Dunkeld after the the 09 / 10 winter. There were other crags with the same problem too iirc. I’m guessing deer and goats aren’t that different in this regard. It was quite a cold winter this year at creag  duhbh . Oui oui got ascents for over a month.

losing

What about The Goat Stroker? Maybe he had a hand in this somewhere? Curiouser and curiouser.

Love all the conspiracy theories, but not convinced.  It's not been that cold recently, the crag was generally very dry when we were there after a week of fine weather, and the carcasses are all fairly recent.

There were also at least two separate instances of fresh rockfall debris at the base.

are there any plans/ ideas on how to remove them or is it the land owners decision? How has this been done before? I had planned to put in some mileage there this season but the decomposing goats are a bit off a buzz kill... Would be happy to donate a tarp and pair of hands towards the efforts

Leader, Billy Gruff, convinced them there was a troll under the bridge.

"I was just kidding", he said afterwards, but it was too late.

One survivor, the family's nanny, was distraught. "It really gets my...

A sheep died below a crag on Mull winter before last. I tied a rope round the back legs and dragged it away, it wasn't as bad a job as I expected.

It will obviously be a bigger problem with six animals.

Might be worth asking the farmer if he could dispose of them if you got them down to the road. 

P.S.

Saw one dead goat on scree right of Great Wall at the end of February.

Goat trundling?

You've goat to be joking!

As far as I know, Creag Dubh is an SSSI. I presume for various plant species, or just because it's an unusual habitat as a steep and rocky south facing slope. Increasing numbers of feral goats were wrecking it. The fencing off of Creag Dubh may have been done by the landowner but the cost will have come from SNH and others who all approved of the fencing. In time the fences have broken and now goats live there. So it may have been a deliberate attempt to reduce the number, or it may be chance. Half a dozen smelly corpses was normal before the fencing. So unless you're a particular goat lover, the more that die the better (for the plant life).

If they've been intentionally/legally killed then would the bodies not be removed?

Have they been poisoned? Still doesn't fully explain the impaled goat on a tree though...

I don't have the answer, but neither do I have any sympathy for the goats.

murder is a term that meant the killing of a frenchman, as opposed to a saxon.

Could a dog have chased them in panic over the cliff?  Like the sheep at the beginning of "Far from the Maddidding Crowd"?

Should you lot not stick up for each other?

We were back at the crag on Saturday. There are another couple of fresh carcasses that we didn't see on our first visit - in the boulder field beneath Waterfall Wall, so 8 dead goats in total. So the entire goat population at the crag annihilated in one fell swoop.

With the exception of the one impaled in a broken branch in the horizontal birch tree at the base of The Great Wall, all are by the path contouring beneath the base of the crags, or a short way beneath in the boulder field. The one in the tree has clearly come off the top of the crag, not sure how the others met their demise, but I don't think the evidence of fresh rockfall debris is purely coincidental. 

The grass ledge at the top of Strapadictaemi has partially collapsed, resulting in some mud on a short section near the top of the route. We avoided the ledge by traversing left to finish up the final section of Inbred Super Direct leading to the thread abseil point - a much better way of finishing the route.

There weren't any other carcasses round beneath Bedtime Buttress. Not sure about the base of Sprawl Wall.

Unlike Andy, I rather liked the presence of the small herd of goats at the crag. What about the pair of roe deer we spotted grazing in the woods on our descent - would you be pleased to see their demise also? Not any more voracious vegetation munchers than the goats, surely?