Goats climbing almost vertical dam
Let me be honest with you. I have a great fascination for goats. I think they are one if not the most fascinating animals on our planet. Probably most of you might at first not agree, thinking of your ‘favourite animal’ the Panda, Lion, or dolphin. However, my previous article on mountain goats might have already showed you goats have more to offer than their great grazing abilities. If that did not convince you, take a look at the following.
The small brown dots on the dam’s face are actually mountain goats! – Photograph: Adriano Migliorati
Photograph: Adriano Migliorati
What you see here are Alpine Ibex climbing an almost vertical Dam located high up in the Italian Alps. Typically living in very steep and rocky terrain at altitudes to 4600m, these excellent climbers have no fear to climb up or down the steep dam’s face.
Photograph: Adriano Migliorati
Photograph: Adriano Migliorati
Why they do it? They like to lick the stones for their salts!
Photograph: link
Photograph: link
Photograph: link
I hope you now share my great fascination for the incredible mountain goats! Let me know what you think in the comments.
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yes, i share your fascination. incredible!
I feel so much happier now I understand all this. Thanks!
Thanks Bertha! It’s great to let people feel happier
Animals are amazing, thank you for educating all of us on these beautiful creatures.
blaaaaaaaaat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for your enthusiasm
I love a good goat….if you know what I mean.
Ha Jollé, nice post. Saw them in Switzerland. They are indeed amazing! Would they climb the mountains when there’s food on “ground level” too? Tot snel!
pins and needles in my toes just looking!
Goats are Cool! Climb on and stay thirsty, my bleating friends….
I’m curious to know how often these types of goats slip and fall. Has anyone studied this? Surely, it must happen sometimes. Nobody’s perfect!
Hi Alex,
As far as I know nobody has done a proper study on how often the goats fall to their death. However, as I wrote in my post about the mountain goat, “one of the main causes of death of these mountain dwellers are falling accidents.” I expect they actually fall less often than you would think, but I would like to know more about it as well. Perhaps I’ll just go there myself for a couple of weeks for a short research project
Hello Jolles…the sight of these guys made me ponder the question…what happens to these dudes if one of their buddies crap on the dam wall, effectively blocking off the “pathway” that they may have come in on?
How would they handle (or hoofle) this?
Then of course, I realised that nature had already taken care of this by making the goat faeces small and round and firmish, so they would roll off the face and not cause a hazard for the goats…Unbelievable stuff
GREAT PHOTOS AND INTERESTING ARTICLE
Hey Arthur, thanks for you nice comment! What an interesting question
I think the dam is so steep that indeed their faeces will roll off the face of the dam. Furthermore, since their faeces is rather dry, it might actually be beneficial to them to stand on the stones of which the dam is made off! Someone should really do a proper study to investigate this and questions like the one posted by Alex C. Thanks!
Amazing… but also quite scary! Methinks that’s too much effort just for some salt!
Hello everyone, my name is Adrian ‘s author of the first five photos of Alpine ibex, I can assure you that the show I attended was crazy, I was about 1 hour to watch and photograph them, even if it seems absolutely impossible not to fall , but while there I had watched the beating heart for them. Unfortunately, some die in avalanches.
Adriano Migliorati.
Thanks so much for taking these amazing pictures Adriano. In this way now people from all over the world have become more fascinated by goats and hopefully for animals in general. Look forward to see more of your photographs!
Gracias Adriano Migliorati, su reportaje insertado en El Mundo, era increible, hasta que he visto su video. ¡¡¡Asombroso!!!
We absolutely LOVE goats. Our mascot is a goat named Clive. And we agree – they’re AMAZING animals.
Goat Milk all the way!
-e
крутые казлы – спайдермены! =)
Hello I wanted to specify that no goats are wild Alpine ibex that can not be closer to making these images have to walk in the mountains for 4 hours.
Adriano.
Animals are weird. So are you.
Seriously, this is seriously incredible
I want a Mountain Goat.
Thanks for all your comments!
Fascinating. The more that we learn about “unexpected” things that non-human animals can do, the more we should appreciate that we do NOT know all there is to be known.
Thanks!
Thanks Ed, great feedback!
My professor showed us this in my intro to biology class. I too wondered how many of them have fallen off. I hope not a lot. That would be sad
wow.. maybe we should start making rock climbing shoes like mountain goat hooves..
i would wear that.
humm. if i ever go seek audience with those goats ill first rub myself down with salt… that would guarantee me a close up picture with me mm? 舔舔舔。。。舔。
Intrepid Ibex indeed.
I haven’t seen anything like this in my life. How they not fall down and can still keeping walking on close to vertical wall. Would love to see it in real life
Judging from the creativity and beauty of your work, you must be the Adriano Migliorati I know from many years ago! … Your ideas were already interesting and creative then! I must admit, I had a little shock in recognizing your name under these pictures … but, as they like to say, the world is truly small! Congratulations: the pictures are truly stunning … Keep up the good work, Adriano! Un abbraccio.
Thank you for sharing these incredible images. How would we ever be able to see this? Very educational as well, we were wondering why they would do this. The Salt!
i like goats
Thanks Nina!!
Awesome creatures. Keep up the good work.
Saw this in NG, really amazing!
I wish people would place saltlicks all around the the dam so they would not have to do this.
Gravity doesn’t seem to apply for goats.
wow
amazing