{"id":17942,"date":"2012-07-22T14:29:32","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T12:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=17942"},"modified":"2019-12-22T22:29:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T09:29:04","slug":"feral-goats-on-the-west-coast-of-ireland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/feral-goats-on-the-west-coast-of-ireland\/","title":{"rendered":"Feral Goats on the West Coast of Ireland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since first sighting the Feral Goats on Goat Island whilst sailing last year, I had wanted to return to capture some shots of this enigmatic species. Goat Island is situated at the North Western end of Roaringwater Bay on the West Coast of Island.<\/p>\n

Weather conditions yesterday were perfect for photography – blue skies and very light winds. My good friend Liam Arundel and I took the rib and headed out into the bay. As we approached Goat Island the goats were nowhere to be seen, so we took the opportunity to photograph the resident Shags, Oystercatchers, Great Black-backed Gulls and Fulmar. Then after rounding the island and approaching from the North West with the sun behind us, we spotted about 15 Feral Goats on the pinnacle of the island.<\/p>\n

The Feral Goat is the domestic goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) when it has become established in the wild. Feral goats are common in many areas of the Irish west coast including counties Cork, Mayo, Donegal and Kerry. In the town of Killorglin, in County Kerry, a Puck Fair takes place each year in which a wild goat is captured and crowned “King” of the fair, in a continuation of ancient Celtic practices.<\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Feral Goats (Capra aegagrus hircus) on Goat Island, Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus) at Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Great Black-backed Gull (Larus marinus) at Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis) at Roaringwater Bayer, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) at Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) at Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

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Shag (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) at Roaringwater Bay, West Cork, Republic of Ireland<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since first sighting the Feral Goats on Goat Island whilst sailing last year, I had wanted to return to capture some shots of this enigmatic species. Goat Island is situated at the North Western end of Roaringwater Bay on the West Coast of Island. Weather conditions yesterday were perfect for photography – blue skies and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":2192424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/goat_0008.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","ngg_tag-bird","ngg_tag-a-alba","ngg_tag-america","ngg_tag-animalia","ngg_tag-ardea","ngg_tag-ardea-alba","ngg_tag-ardeidae","ngg_tag-atlantic-ocean","ngg_tag-aves","ngg_tag-avian-2","ngg_tag-chordata","ngg_tag-common-egret","ngg_tag-eukaryota","ngg_tag-great-egret","ngg_tag-great-white-egret","ngg_tag-large-egret","ngg_tag-nature","ngg_tag-new-jersey","ngg_tag-ocean-city","ngg_tag-or-great-white-heron","ngg_tag-pelecaniformes","ngg_tag-united-states-2","ngg_tag-usa","ngg_tag-wildlife-3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}