Incredible Tree-Climbing Goats | WebEcoist

The Incredible Tree-Climbing Goats of Morocco

By Delana in Animals & Habitats, Featured Articles, Food & Health, Geography & Travel

(Images via: Nick Outram and Moment)

Before you jump to conclusions: no, these were not created by a bored geek in Photoshop. Amazingly, these uncanny animals are actually real: they climb the Argan trees of Morocco in search of food, which is otherwise sparse in the region. Over time they have become not only able to climb trees but downright adept at the art – the traipse across trees with a sure-footedness that is hard to imagine from a hoofed animal.

(image via Lottelies)

The droppings of the goats contain the kernels of the seeds they consume which are, strangely enough, used by locals to press and grind into oil. Even more disturbingly: this oil has a number of uses including culinary (yes, people eat it) and cosmetic (yes, they also smear it on themselves). You might want to skip over the versions of these products sold by local farmers for the somewhat cleaner mass-produced varieties. For a quarter-liter bottle of this goat-digested kernel-oil you can expect to pay from 15 to 50 dollars.

Known as skilled navigators of treacherous mountain conditions, maybe it isn’t such a surprise after all to find goats making their way up the steep and narrow trunks and branches of only slightly more dangerous trees. Unfortunately, the Argan tree is slowly being over-harvested so you may have to hurry to see the real thing. Still not sure you believe the images of goats climbing trees up to heights of 30 feet? There is nothing quite like a video to convince even the most cynical skeptics:

Note that instead of the careful climbing one might expect these brave goats simply hop from one cluster of branches to another in search of food. In the middle of the video you can even see a younger goat run down the almost vertical slope of the tree before hopping lightly onto the ground below – followed shortly after by another that simply jumps from a higher set of branches to land on its feet.

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Notice the ground those trees grow in? The goats have eaten every scrap of greenery — leaves, stems, roots and all — and are now busily denuding the trees themselves.

Sure, they’re cute and quirky. Tree-climbing goats! Wow! But they’re also busily turning the local environment into lifeless desert, as they have been for thousands of years.

We just got back from a 2 week trekking expedition to Morocco in the southwest, coastal region (where the argan trees are located) and had the opportunity to see these animals in action. Those goats are the real deal and I’ve got my own pictures to prove it!

The video is missing a key peice of evidence for it’s case to taken seriously. We never see the goats climbing up the tree, which is one assumes to be the hardest part of their whole tree climbling skills.

This is fake. These are the well know Clumber Peeble Trees of Lower Croania that grow down from the roof of extremely large caves. This is an upside down picture of one of those trees with large goat shaped xmas decorations hanging from them. Turn the picture upside down and you will see it is obvious.

Completely real. All of you guys who think this is fake…ignorant at best. My sister raises goats for the milk. They regularly climb anything to eat just about anything. Animatronic goats, please *eyes rolling*!

truth is stranger than fiction people! those who say it’s remote control, etc. etc., have obviously never seen real live goats! I’ve seen them stacked-up practically on a steep hillside, where you wouldn’t think they could stand at all—but they do!

Guaranteed, after each one of these pictures was taken there was some toothless old poop-eater who got paid a few dirhems. Although they can climb the trees by themselves, I’m sure that in a good number of cases, the goats get put in the tree just to get tourists to stop.

In all honesty, the goats in Morocco are capable of climbing trees. When I went there and saw them, I could hardly believe my eyes. I took photos that are similar to those shown on this website. When I showed people back in Canada, no one believed me – it is too far from the norm of activity for people to understand. However, these goats are completely real – not machines – the goats need to eat the food which is available at the top of the tree. If you look at the branches you can see that they curve which would allow an animal to walk on them. These goats are simply the gymnasts of the animal kingdom.

These are shadow puppets, haven’t you people ever been to camp. I think they were probabaly made with an overhead projector, photographs of goats, attached to miniture robot grasshoppers. If you look real close you can see that thier beards are glued on.

OK, I have lived in Morocco 17 years, and I am married to a Moroccan and have raised my family here, as well. This tree-climbing takes place not too far from where I live, and I have seen it MANY times. So I will clear up some things about this video.

Yes, it’s TRUE that the goats DO climb trees to eat the nuts on the trees (only in the nut season, of course). It’s also true that a couple of highways (two-lane only) run through some of these goat-climbing areas. Because the poor Moroccans who live in these areas KNOW that tourists will stop when they see goats in trees, sometimes the Moroccans will PUT the goats up there in order to get tourists to stop. This could very well have happened here since we did not see the goats climing the trees, only coming down. (However, I do want to make clear that the goats themselves ARE capable of climbing when they wish to, when the nuts are in season.) When the tourists stop to take pictures of the goats, sometimes the poor Moroccans there will try to ask the tourists for money.

I hope this clears up the confusion.

Nevertheless, a very enjoyable post, and I’m sorry to see people thinking things like these are mechanical goats, etc.

Madame Monet
Writing, Painting, Music, and Wine
winewriter.wordpress.com

I forgot to add that about the pictures at the top of the post, that it’s very unusual to see THAT MANY goats in a tree, unless Moroccans have PUT them up there to get tourists to stop. If they are climbing on their OWN, in the nut season, you might find one, two, three goats in a tree, but I’ve never seen eight or ten and just standing on limbs like that (not eating!). So this leads me to think these photos were staged for tourists or postcards (nothing wrong with that) but this many is more likely to get tourists to stop and give some picture-taking money to the locals.

But YES, it does really happen.

Madame Monet
17-year resident of southern Morocco
Writing, Painting, Music, and Wine
winewriter.wordpress.com

hahahahahahahahhahaha i have to do a project on Morocco for social studies and me and my friend typed in morocco goats and we burst out laughing in the middle of class it was so funny hahahahahaha goats in trees!!!!

I hate to disappoint everyone, but the photos are fake in a way. During my studies of the poor and indigenous peoples of Morroco, I found that a few tribes have been faking these goat climbings for many decades. What appears to be live goats, are simply children in goat costumes. As one of the previous posters guessed, the practice is done for tourists. It is really amazing the culture that has grown around this way of sustaining income. In the video you will notice a goat herd walking away from the trees, all of the goats on the ground are of course real goats. The real goats are not only kept around for food they are kept as decoys to make the costumed children more credible. The “goats” in the trees are the young males of the tribe who are skilled enough at miming the goats movements to be allowed to “perform” for the tourists. From birth the young boys are paired with a goat that will one day become the costume used for performance. The making of the costume is a rite of passage for all the boys and usually takes place around the age of 9. During the ritual the boy kills the goat with a special knife then with the help of their mother creates the costume from the goats carcass. Its a very gruesome thing to witness and very few “money men,” (translated from Arabic), as the tourists are called, are ever permitted to see it.