Wild Goats Missing
The Wild Goat Conservation Trust (TWGCT) is concerned about the whereabouts of a herd (heft) of 35 wild goats that have gone missing from the Hermitage valley in the Scottish Borders.
The missing goats are a mystery. They were a settled group located at Dinley Farm, that is currently up for sale for £2.4 million, not far from Hermitage Castle.
This heft is part of an ancient herd of wild goats that roams the hills between Langholm and Newcastleton in the South of Scotland. Since February last year the population has come under increasing pressure from landowners who have been shooting them. From what the landowners have disclosed, TWGCT estimate that over 200 animals were shot in 2025.
Back on 2nd January Mr Scott, the owner of Dinley Farm, was interviewed for the BBC Radio 4 Farming Today feature Wildlife or Pest? The Wild Goats of Langholm Moor. Mr Scott was clearly not enamoured by the goats complaining that there were too many, they were eating the buds off his garden shrubs, interfering with his farm business and something would have to be done to control their numbers.
When asked if he would support a plan bringing landowners together to agree a sustainable management plan for the whole herd, Mr Scott commented that this would be bureaucracy and individual landowners should be allowed to do what they wanted.
David Braithwaite, TWGCT Chairman, said “The wild goat kidding season has now all but ended and we have been hoping that the heft of some 35 animals would reappear in the Hermitage valley. With every day that passes those hopes are fading. We have been out in the hills in the past weeks and have not seen sign of them. Whilst it would be wrong for us to speculate exactly what may have happened to the goats at this stage, we do fear that they may no longer be alive.”
Mr Braithwaite went on to comment that the tradition had been for landowners to tolerate the wild goats, controlling their numbers sensitively when the need arose. He accepted, as Mr Scott had pointed out on the Farming Today programme, that the goats did have some impacts on hill farming given they eat very similar things to sheep but said “In the wider context, a 1,500 acre hill farm for example, receives something like £20,000 per year in taxpayers money by way of agricultural subsidies, so it’s probably not unreasonable for the public to expect that a tolerant approach to the goats should continue, as happens in other parts of the UK.”
Gail Brown, Vice-Chair of TWGCT said “It is exactly a year ago that we handed over a local petition to John Lamont MP and Rachael Hamilton MSP in Newcastleton. That local petition, which carried overwhelming community concern for the welfare of the much-loved wild goats, was then presented to the House of Commons and to Holyrood. Here we a year on and seemingly no further forward with goat numbers dwindling without any legal sanctions in place. Local people are being ignored by the landowners, and this must change. It is surely time for NatureScot to step in and coordinate a herd conservation management plan that will satisfy the concerns of the local communities otherwise, the friction is only going to intensify.”
Landowners have already stated that the herd attrition will continue this year and as a result TWGCT is saying that there is an urgent need to undertake a full count of the whole population. “No one knows the exact size of the total population and until this is known TWGCT is calling for a complete moratorium on the culling,” said Braithwaite. “We are currently fundraising to have a professional independent population survey undertaken of the whole 50 square miles of uplands that is home to this unique herd. Only then can we begin to understand how to sensitively manage the numbers so that there remains a robust and resilient self-sustaining population. Local people expect no less; we are standing up for them, and we are standing up for the wild goats.”