THE WHITE MOUNTAIN GOAT, No. 48.
Fortunate indeed is the zoological park or garden which can exhibit even one living specimen of the White Mountain Goat. It is a very difficult matter to take an animal from a rarified dry atmosphere, at an elevation of 8,000 feet, and induce it to live at sea level, in a dense and humid atmosphere, on food to which it is by nature wholly unaccustomed.
We have been successful in establishing here, on a breeding basis this rare and difficult animal, (Oreamnos montanus). One kid was born in 1908 and another in 1910, and both have thriven, the former now being so large as to look like an adult specimen.
For some subtle reason which we can not explain, these animals—like the chamois and mouflon quartered in small pens near the Small-Mammal House—do not thrive in any of the large, rock-bound corrals of Mountain Sheep Hill. They are kept in a rock-paved corral near the Pheasant Aviary and the Crotona Entrance, and to their use has been devoted a rustic barn, which they shelter in or climb over, according to the weather. To see them walking nonchalantly over the steep roof, or perching upon its peak, is one of the drollest sights of the Park.
The White Goat, sometimes mistakenly called “goat antelope,” belongs to a small group known as the Rupicaprines or rock antelopes. It inhabits many different kinds of territory, but usually the rugged sides and summits of high mountains, at irregular intervals from southwestern Montana and northern Washington, northward to the head of Cook Inlet on the coast of Alaska. (See map of distribution, with label.) The valley of the upper Yukon contains practically no goats. They are most abundant in southeastern British Columbia, where in a very small area, in September, 1905, Mr. John M. Phillips and the writer actually counted 239 individuals.
Of the five animals now exhibited in the Park, three were captured a few days after their birth, in May, 1905, about seventy miles north of Fort Steele, British Columbia. They arrived here October 9, 1905, and up to this date they have thriven as well, and grown as rapidly, as they would have in a state of nature. Their food consists of the best clover hay obtainable, and crushed oats. When they shed their coats, in the spring, they are almost as white as snow, but with months of use, their pelage becomes soiled and slightly discolored.
A fully adult male mountain goat stands from 39 to 41 inches in shoulder height, and weighs, on scales, from 258 to 300 pounds.