Catalina Goat

Catalina goats are goats — Capra hircus, the domestic descendant of the wild goat of Central Asia — and wherever people have turned goats loose they've gone feral and thrived, on rugged mountains, rocky crags, and thin range that wouldn't carry sheep or cattle. A feral-type goat looks much like any other: hollow horns that grow either scimitar-curved or corkscrew-twisted, a beard and rank odor on the billies, and a coat that can be black, white, red, or brown, solid, spotted, or striped, on an animal of around 100 pounds. They feed by day on grass and shrubs in herds of five to twenty, the billies butting heads to settle rank, and twins are the norm. Goats went ashore on Santa Catalina Island off California in 1827 and ran wild there for the better part of two centuries, until the last were removed around 2005.