After eating his way through northwestern Ontario, this goat is getting a one-way ticket south
A runaway goat who has been wreaking havoc in towns and communities across northwestern Ontario will soon be on a plane headed south if his temporary owners can raise enough money to buy a one-way ticket.
Goaty, as he's been dubbed by local media, caused quite a stir when he showed up at a powwow on June 12 at Northwest Angle First Nation 33, 60 km southeast of Kenora, Ont.
"It walked around the parking lot for a bit and let people pet him," said Damion Green of Shoal Lake 39 First Nation and attended the event. "It tried to come onto the pow wow arbour but no animals are allowed. Then it was escorted off the arbour."
According to locals, the goat had also been spotted hanging around Whitefish Bay First Nation, just up the road, before his appearance at the powwow, Green said.
But that was just the beginning of Goaty's meander through northwestern Ontario.
More than a month after Goaty crashed the powwow, he turned about an hour away, in Kenora, and was seen snacking on grass on the Main Street roundabout.
So how did he get there?
"We don't know," said Kenora local Amy Mosionier, who is caring for the billy goat on her family farm. "Only he knows that one."
"He looked fine. He had a nice, pudgy belly," she said. "He was obviously eating pretty good stuff along his journey."
Mosionier figures Goaty is about a year old. "He doesn't have a very big goatee. Billy goats normally have a huge goatee on the front and he has a little baby face."
But Goaty shouldn't get too comfortable at his new home, because he can't stay, said Mosionier.
"We just don't have space. It's an older farm. Just with the way our economy is nowadays, we just can't can't do it," she said.
But Mosionier's hasn't had any luck finding Goaty a home nearby.
"Just with the lack of hay and everything and the 30 per cent shortage and the cut that the government has given all of the major farms and stuff in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, nobody's taking any hay-eaters right now," she said.
In the end, Mosionier found a home for Goaty at an animal sanctuary in St. Marys, Ont., but it's a plane-ride away and she'll need to raise the funds to buy a one-way ticket for the rambling billy goat.
Once he is settled after his exciting trip, he will be neutered before joining two other rescued goats, Luna and Panda, said Siobhan Poole of Cedar Row Farm Sanctuary. "Home is where the herd is."
It'll cost a fair bit of money to get Goaty to his new home: $600 for the ticket, a $300 containment fee and a $175 livestock fee.
"I will miss him 110 per cent," said Mosionier. "He is a sweetheart. I'm going to be in tears when I have to send him on the plane."
Listen to the interview with Amy Mosionier about Goaty:
