Wild goat
Capra aegagrus
A wild goat of steep, often forested mountain slopes. Adult males have scimitar-shaped horns and a dark beard. In Georgia it is a resident species with a small, geographically limited population.
At a glance
Key facts in one look
Diet
Herbivore
Status in Georgia
Resident, restricted
Size
73–90 cm
Habitat
Steep forested slopes
Family
Bovidae
Conservation
CR / NT
Human interaction: It has no venom. It does not normally approach people. Do not try to photograph it at close range on cliffs, and do not follow groups off trail. Keep dogs under control in Tusheti and Khevsureti. Hunting is illegal. Do not feed it. Hybridisation with domestic goats is a documented threat in parts of the species’ range; it is not quantified for Georgia on this page.
Overview
What is Wild goat
The wild goat (Capra aegagrus), Georgian ნიამორი, is a native mountain goat now limited in Georgia to Tusheti and northern Khevsureti. It belongs to the cattle family (Bovidae). English names include wild goat and bezoar goat; “bezoar ibex” is a popular name for the Caucasian–Anatolian form, not a separate species. IUCN lists Georgia as a native resident. Current breeding populations sit on the northern slope of the Greater Caucasus. It is not a venomous animal. The practical human issues are disturbance, illegal hunting, and livestock disease — not a bite. IUCN assesses the species globally as Near Threatened. Georgia’s 2014 Red List treats it as Critically Endangered (CR).
Last updated
Gallery
Wild goat in photos
Photo: ვასილ გაბუნია
Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park ·
Photo: ნიკა ქერდიკოშვილი
Tusheti ·
Photo: Alexander Malkhasyan
Armenia ·
Photo: Alexander Malkhasyan
Armenia ·
Photo: Alexander Malkhasyan
Zangezur National Park ·
Photo: Alexander Malkhasyan
Zangezur National Park ·
Photo: gailhampshire
Mount Gndasar, Armenia ·
Photo: Emőke Dénes
Natural History Museum, London ·
Identification
How to identify Wild goat
A wild goat of steep mountains. Adult males have long backward-curving horns, a dark beard, and a pale body with dark face and stripes. Resident in Georgia only in a small part of the eastern Greater Caucasus.
- 01
At species level (Handbook of the Mammals of the World treatment) male head–body length is about 129–152 cm, tail 11–13 cm, shoulder height 73–90 cm in males and 55–60 cm in females; mass about 45–90 kg in males and 25–55 kg in females. There is no measured Georgian series on this page. Both sexes have horns. Male horns curve up and back in a scimitar, are compressed side-to-side, keeled in front, and bear knobs on the keel; they rarely exceed about 127 cm, with a recorded maximum of 152 cm. Female horns are thinner, usually under about 33 cm, and lack frontal knobs.
- 02
NACRES field classes used in Georgia: adult male (about 5–6 years and older) — head wholly black, body white to silvery grey, with black stripes; young male (2–5 years) — head not fully black, beard present, body still brownish turning grey; adult female — brownish, thin spiky horns clearly longer than the ears, no beard, a dark line through the eye, a line separating the white belly from the brown flanks, and a stripe along the spine; yearling male — female-sized, horns about as long as a female’s but broader at the base; kid — small, horns absent or only as long as the ears. Adult males have a dark beard from the chin.
- 03
East Caucasian tur (Capra cylindricornis, ჯიხვი) shares the eastern Greater Caucasus: adult male horns form an open spiral, not a simple scimitar, and tur is more a species of ground above the timberline. West Caucasian tur (Capra caucasica) is a western Greater Caucasus animal and is not the current Georgian bezoar-goat population. Chamois (Rupicapra, არჩვი) is smaller, with short hooked horns. Domestic goat (Capra hircus) is the descendant of this wild species; mixed colours and floppy ears are common in village stock and are not a field mark of wild ნიამორი. Roe deer is a forest deer with antlers, not horns. This atlas does not yet have pages for tur or chamois.
- 04
It is not venomous. Watch from a long distance. The hero photograph is from Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park (Vasil Gabunia, 17 May 2015). The gallery includes a Tusheti frame (Nika Kerdikoshvili, 20 February 2016). The rest is C. a. aegagrus from Armenia and a museum horn set.
Biology
Habitat, diet, behavior, and conservation
Habitat and range
In the Greater Caucasus it is mainly a mixed-forest mountain goat of steep, rugged slopes, cliffs and scree, not an animal of open alpine pasture in the way East Caucasian tur often is. IUCN notes that males tend to use higher ground than females outside the rut. This page does not colour a municipality-by-municipality map. Named Georgian sites with a resident population: Tusheti Protected Areas (strict nature reserve, national park and protected landscape) and Pshav-Khevsureti Protected Areas in northern Khevsureti, including slopes toward Shatili and the Shatilistskali gorge near the Russian border (NACRES / CNF, 2021). This page includes a photograph from Tusheti dated 20 February 2016 (Nika Kerdikoshvili) — two animals on a steep, wooded slope. Core habitat mapped in that survey was about 79 km² in Tusheti and 39 km² in Khevsureti. Camera-trap males have been photographed in Lagodekhi Protected Areas (Kabali and Lagodekhi gorges, late 2016–early 2017 and again in spring 2021); those animals did not stay and are treated here as visitors from Dagestan, not a Georgian breeding group. The Lesser Caucasus range is historical: Adjara mountains and the Meskheti ridge to Borjomi (Radde 1899; Dinnik 1914; Vereshchagin 1959). It disappeared from the Borjomi area in the early twentieth century (Geptner et al. 1961); Janashvili (1977) wrote that small groups lasted into the 1970s. Arabuli (1985) counted 65 animals on the Arsiani ridge in eastern Adjara in the early 1980s. Brief surveys in 2002 and 2006–2007 found no sign on the Lesser Caucasus. A male was reported near Khichauri, Adjara, in January 2020; NACRES treats it as a likely seasonal movement from Turkey. APA describes a reintroduction enclosure at Atskuri in Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park since 2006. This page includes a photograph from that park dated 17 May 2015 (Vasil Gabunia) — an adult male in woodland. That is a named locality, not a 2021 census of a breeding population; NACRES still treats free-ranging Georgian breeding populations as Tusheti and northern Khevsureti only. Do not assume occurrence across the rest of Georgia, including Svaneti, Javakheti, or settled lowlands. A measured national elevation belt is not published here.
Diet
There is no separate Georgian diet study on this page. Across the range it is a herbivore: grasses, herbs and shrubs. In the Caucasus it can climb trees such as juniper and oak more readily than tur (Weinberg). Diet shifts with season and green forage. It is not a predator. In Georgia it is prey for leopard where their ranges meet; wolf, lynx, brown bear and golden eagle can take at least young animals in the Greater Caucasus, though predator impact there is generally judged low.
Behavior
It is shy in Georgia. NACRES counted from opposite slopes, often 2 km or more away, because walking into the range would push animals out of view. Groups in the 2021 counts were mostly small: in Khevsureti about 80% of observations were one or two animals; in Tusheti just over half of groups were a female with kids. Average group size was 2.96 in Khevsureti and 1.93 in Tusheti. Large male bands are uncommon; one group of 20 males was seen in the Shatilistskali gorge. Distinct long-distance seasonal migration is not typical in the Caucasus, except that males may stay away from females outside the rut. In the Greater Caucasus the rut is about mid-November to the second decade of December in Daghestan, later than sympatric tur. Ekvtimishvili (1954) studied reproduction in Georgia; births are normally in May but can shift with the previous rut. NACRES saw no females with kids in late May 2021 in Khevsureti and judged births delayed that year. Twins are frequent at species level. Tracks are cloven hooves on rock and scree. There is no Georgian sound recording on this page.
Conservation
Weinberg and Ambarli (2020) assess Capra aegagrus as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. Government Resolution No. 190 (2014) lists ნიამორი as CR, criterion C2 a(ii). The same table attributes the name to Linnaeus, 1758; the accepted author is Erxleben, 1777. Hunting is prohibited. Protected since 1982 and in the 1982 Georgian Red Data Book as a shrinking-range species. Ilia State University’s 2021 scientific revision (Kopaliani and Gurielidze) proposed Endangered; that is a scientific proposal, not a change to the legal 2014 list. NACRES (2021) estimated 363 animals in Tusheti and 114 in Khevsureti, 477 in total, up from a combined figure of about 350 in 2013. Tusheti is described as stable but low. Main threats named for both protected areas are poaching in late autumn and winter, livestock on shared pastures, herders and livestock-guarding dogs, and disease risk from domestic stock. Hiking trails are not said to cross core habitat; fireworks and loud festival music in Tusheti are noted as possible disturbance. Do not handle wild animals.
Yes. It is a native resident. Today confirmed breeding populations are only in Tusheti and northern Khevsureti. It is not found throughout the country.
Realistically in Tusheti and northern Khevsureti, usually from a long way off on steep forested slopes and cliffs. Tusheti holds most of the national total. Lagodekhi records are visiting males. There is a 2015 photograph from Borjomi-Kharagauli; APA also names a reintroduction enclosure there. That is not the same as a Tusheti-scale wild population.
A goat, not a deer. Adult males have long backward-curving horns with frontal knobs, a dark beard, a dark face and a pale body with dark stripes. Females are brownish with thinner horns and no beard. Tur horns spiral; chamois horns are short and hooked.
At species level male shoulder height is about 73–90 cm and mass often 45–90 kg; females are smaller. There is no separate measured Georgian series on this page.
Plants — grasses, herbs and shrubs, and sometimes foliage from trees such as juniper and oak. Diet has not been studied separately in Georgia on this page.
Counts in Georgia were done just after sunrise and in the last two hours before sunset. It is resident year-round. The rut in the Greater Caucasus is in late autumn; kids are usually born in May.
It is not venomous and does not hunt people. The risk is getting too close on cliffs, disturbing a protected animal, or letting dogs chase it.
Yes. It is Critically Endangered on Georgia’s 2014 Red List and hunting is prohibited. Globally it is Near Threatened. A 2021 scientific review proposed Endangered; the legal list has not been replaced here.
- Weinberg & Ambarli 2020 — IUCN Red List, Capra aegagrus
- ASM Mammal Diversity Database — Capra aegagrus
- Wilson & Reeder 2005 — Mammal Species of the World, Capra hircus aegagrus
- Handbook of the Mammals of the World treatment — Capra aegagrus (Zenodo)
- საქართველოს მთავრობის დადგენილება №190 (2014) — წითელი ნუსხა
- NACRES / CNF / UNDP 2021 — ნიამორის მონიტორინგი (თუშეთი, ფშავ-ხევსურეთი)
- CBD Fifth National Report — Georgia
- Kopaliani & Gurielidze 2021 — Georgian Biodiversity Database, Capra aegagrus
- Gavashelishvili 2009 — GIS-based habitat modelling of mountain ungulates in the Caucasus
- Bleyhl et al. 2020 — Restoring mountain ungulates in the Caucasus
- APA — Borjomi-Kharagauli Panorama trail (bezoar goat cage)
- Adjara TV News 2020 — ნიამორი ხიჭაურთან
- ვასილ გაბუნია — ნიამორი, ბორჯომ-ხარაგაულის ეროვნული პარკი (2015-05-17)
- ნიკა ქერდიკოშვილი — ნიამორი, თუშეთი (2016-02-20)
- Wikimedia Commons — 9 Bezoar Goat (Alexander Malkhasyan, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — 6 Bezoar Goat (Alexander Malkhasyan, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — 3 Bezoar Goat (Alexander Malkhasyan, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — 4 Bezoar Goat (Alexander Malkhasyan, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Mount Gndasar, Armenia (gailhampshire, CC BY 2.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — horns, NHM London (Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Species profiles are compiled from peer-reviewed literature and established biodiversity databases, and are reviewed as new taxonomic and conservation data become available.
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