Is this the most sensible way of managing neolithic goats?

[Guest]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/oct/20/northumberland-goats-neolithic-modern-world?intcmp=239

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

we are all neolithic .....

[ahinton]

we are all neolithic .....

This really - er - gets my goat.

I'll get me coat...

[Richard Tarleton]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...rld?intcmp=239

As usual with this sort of article we're not getting the full story - how many of them there are for a start. The

sites of special scientific interest which would be vulnerable to over-grazing

are presumably pockets of woodland. It's a pity that nature conservation is so prescriptive these days, with features monitoring [sic] and so on - they can't just leave the goats to get on with it, and regard it as a natural event. But it would be a shame if farmers shot them. Radio tagging is a perfectly reasonable way of tracking wild animals (I took part in a project tagging ocelots and other small carnivores in dry tropical forest in Mexico a few years ago), though what they do with the information is another matter - if the goats transgress, do they capture them, move them, what? I think this needs a longer article!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

I'll get me coat...

would that be a shaggy sheepskin?

[ahinton]

would that be a shaggy sheepskin?

It might - who knows? I find myself having to get my coat so frequently these days that I'd have to exercise a choice...

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

often due to prevailing circumstances i find the nearest is usually a good bet .... [coat that is] ... and the one i came in wearing is a big constraint too .... other people get very upset if one fails to choose that particular coat .... property and violence being so intertwined eh ...