Amazing – Tree Climbing Goats

Morocco is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million. People living in Morocco's rural communities where argan trees grow benefit from the marketability of the fruit's oil, but the goats they are able to buy then climb the trees to graze on the leaves, jeopardizing the forests in the process.

Amazingly, these uncanny animals are actually real. They climb the Argan trees of Morocco in search of food, which is otherwise sparse in the region. Over time they have become not only able to climb trees but downright adept at the art of the traipes across trees with a sure-footedness that is hard to imagine from a hoofed animal.

Known as skilled navigators of treacherous mountain conditions, maybe it isn’t such a surprise after all to find goats making their way up the steep and narrow trunks and branches of only slightly more dangerous trees.

The goats climb them because they like to eat the fruit of the argan tree, which is similar to an olive. The fruit of the tree has a nut inside, which the goats can’t digest, so they spit it up or excrete it which the farmers collect. The nut contains 1-3 kernels, which can be ground to make argan oil used in cooking and cosmetics. This oil has been collected by the people of the region for hundreds of years, but like many wild and useful things these days, the argan tree is slowly disappearing due to over-harvesting for the tree’s wood and overgrazing by goats.



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