Video shows a mountain goat and her young chilling on the face of a cliff, waiting out a hungry bear who finally realizes he just can’t get to them without falling and dying in the attempt:
Why is the adult mountain goat stamping her feet?
I assume to present as big, loud, and dangerous. Would you want to get struck by those hooves?
I googled it. I beg pardon, but I have no idea how to cut and paste on this machine. Anyway, the stomping is aggressive display to make predators think twice about screwing with her or her kid. Apparently they use it to deter swooping golden eagles too.
The short link is: www.earthtouchnews.com As I said above: I can’t cut and paste on this thing, and the rest of the link is lonnnnggg. That is, however, what the researchers on that link said. I apologize for my tech failures.
That same article also notes that there are reported cases of grizzly bears being gored & killed by Mountain goats. Those horns mean business!
I’m impressed by the intelligence of both of those animals.
My local deer have done this to me. I was in my golf cart out by the woods just chillin when the family of 4 showed up. The golf cart was obviously some thing new in that part of the yard and they stopped at the edge of the woods and stared. I’m behind the plastic windshield so I figured my face was obscured a bit. I remained absolutely still while mama deer stared me down. Finally she started stamping. First one paw and then a wait. Finally she hopped up on her hind legs and stamped with both feet. I never moved and she finally grazed away.
I wouldn’t have guessed it was a meaningful threat, but then it turns out mountain goats are bigger than I imagined: Wikipedia says adult males can be as big as 310 pounds, and females up to 180 pounds. The bear may win more often than not, but with those horns and hooves backed up by that much muscle, it’s likely to be an expensive meal.
That bear was smart not to push the matter, but as thin as it was, it looks like it just came out of hibernation and was probably awfully hungry…
I couldn’t figure how the bear thought it might get down and safely attack the goats at the same time. We didn’t see the beginning, but i wonder if the goats climbed down to escape the bear.
That’s what I surmised, or, at the very least, pick a battle ground that gives the advantage to a “mountain” goat.
I think it was a reverse Tigger situation, since it looked like the bear was simply being cautious going down the slope but didn’t have any actual issues, but then it looked like it could barely scramble back up once it backed off. Probably a wise decision to not go forward to the actual cliff.
Yep, a threat display.
I did see another video like this but, in that one, the bear gave chase to the goat, slipped, and plunged to its death. This bear seems to have a higher IQ.