Goats Gambol In Gardens, Welsh Wardens Whack

Wales, home of largely unpronounceable words and great groups of goats. Or there used to be great groups, now they gotten the local council worried enough to send someone out on a great goatwhacking expedition. It seems the goats, who used to pretty much stay up in the mountains have discovered the joys of gardening. Not planting - eating. And it's got the resident's goat, so to speak.

They have roamed the mountains of Snowdonia for thousands of years and become a symbol of its rugged landscape.

Unfortunately man is no longer living in harmony with the native feral goat population.

Escalating numbers of wild goats causing an ever-increasing nuisance to residents and the environment has forced the authorities in North Wales to begin the first major cull of the animals.

Last week a professional marksman employed by Gwynedd Council spent three days killing 38 goats in countryside near Llanberis.

The cull - described officially as the removal of goats under a 'management programme' - was conducted secretly and more are likely to follow.

'Surveys' of other goat herds in the region are currently being carried out and more culls are expected to be ordered as the most effective method of control.

Although the move has been prompted by numerous public complaints, the authorities are braced for objections from outraged animal rights groups who believe it is uneccesary.

According to a committee of landowners and conservationists, including the National Trust and Snowdonia National Park Authority, numbers of wild goats have almost doubled in the last five years to around 500.

They have been coming down off the high mountains where they cause few problems and run riot through gardens, eat flowers, damage fences and walls and munch through saplings in protected woods.

A spokesman for the Countryside Council for Wales said the larger goat population had led to "significant damage to certain key habitats including internationally important woodlands and heathlands."

"Local residents are worried about damage to their gardens and the real danger posed by the goats feeding habits around highways. Farmers are also concerned about goat damage," he said.

(We often lie awake at night and worry about goat damage, too. Actually, around these parts, we mostly worry about deer. Which are a) suicidal and b) very hard on cars. But we digress.) Of course the requisite outside groups who have gardens not being eaten by grazing goats are all in a tizzy over the herd being thinned. So maybe the local council should ship a group of goats over to the critics gardens. That should calm things down.