British Feral Goat Reasearch Group PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The R.S.P.B. study (1994) reached the following conclusions with regard to the antiquity, origin and type of the loch Lomondside feral goat population: · Possibly the oldest record of feral goats in Britain actually appertains to the Inversnaid area, this being a reference to the fourteenth century story linking Robert the Bruce to feral goats at that time. · Feral goats would not have been tolerated in the Loch Lomondside area between around seventeen hundred and 1920, the period when the woodlands were intensively managed for timber, charcoal and tanbark. · It is probable that the present day feral goat herds originated around the turn of the twentieth century. · Milking goats were liberated to join the Loch Lomondside herds at the end of the Great War, and at least three domestic animals were introduced to the Inversnaid population during the 1980’s. · There is no reason to believe that the Inversnaid population is any more or less “pure ” than any other feral goat population. · When introgression occurs, it is impossible to recognise domestic links in a very short space of time, it being regrettable that pelage patterns offer little evidence as to the origins of feral goa