Joe-
It's sometimes hard to tell how domestication impacts DNA...mountain goats here in Alaska are flat amazing to watch! They traverse rocky, cliffy terrain that would cause today's highly equipped rock climbers to catch their breath. I recall in my GIS days working with goat/sheep wildlife biologists, to model their habitat preferences. It's been long enough now that the specific numbers have faded away, but the constraints haven't...they want steep and rocky barrens, island-like in seas of grassy shrubby veg, not so far apart that they couldn't evade their predators moving from one to another. They had preferences for elevation/aspect/slope, all items that are reasonably modeled in a GIS system.
In any case, they're a joy watch...we're fortunate here in Anchorage to be able to drive a half-hour south along Turnagain Arm and often view them from roadside turnouts.
-Don
Joe wrote:I know little about any farm animals--- so one day when I'm walking with a forestry client- the guy's goat tagged along- as we walked next to a stone wall, the goat jumped up on the wall and continued to walk on it for a few hundred yards- for no reason at all. I thought it was rather funny at the time.
Joe
