Usually, there is either a political or religious story that catches our eye. Today, however, one headline stood out among the rest. Easily.
In fact, I had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t a joke headline from The Onion.
From Canada’s National Post:
***MYSTERIOUS ‘GOAT MAN’ SPOTTED IN UTAH MOUNTAINS***
Now admit it: you’d read that story. Heck, with that headline, you pretty much HAVE to.
I’m not a hunter, so I’ll ask the hunters out there: Is this normal? I mean, do you guys rent bear costumes or deer costumes, too?
I’m just askin’…
OGDEN, Utah — State wildfire officials have identified a man who has been spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats in the mountains of northern Utah.
Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said Monday the mystery man is a 57-year-old hunter from Southern California.
Douglass told the Standard-Examiner that the hunter called officials and provided enough information to put their curiosity to rest. Douglass says he didn’t ask for a name.
The man described his suit as a hooded painter’s uniform and a fleece.
Last week, officials said they were worried the “goat man” was putting himself in danger, either from the animals themselves, or by being mistaken for a goat by another hunter.
Two Heads are Better Than One 
I never could figure out what all the hullabaloo was about or why it was news.
Hey, Phoebes,
My only guess is just the initial “huh??” quality to it. Again, I don’t hunt, so I don’t know how commonplace this is. But when I hear “goat man”, I get images of Ripley’s Believe It or Not in my head.
Then, after I read the article, I asked the obvious question: Why?
Are goats so sneaky and difficult to hunt that you need to imitate Ralph the Wolf from Looney Tunes?
😉
Again, I plead ignorance on this one, …but the headline just made me chuckle.
There have been several articles on this over the past couple of weeks. I always figured it was a hunter in disguise, only in Afghanistan are the men men and the goats scared. 😀
LOL!
Not being a hunter, it never even occurred to me that it would be a hunter.
And now that I know, ….it still doesn’t make sense to me.
Hunting season hasn’t started yet and he was trying to get a hold on their patterns for next years hunt. And no, hunters do not dress up as deer they just spray themselves with deer urine scent. 😉
What I figured. I knew about various game scents being used, having been in more than a couple of Cabella’s in the last couple of years (my youngest son shoots a bow).
I suspect that this still qualifies as “unusual” in most hunting circles, unless someone can tell me otherwise.
But I’m willing to be proven wrong.
🙂
Heck, if this catches on, maybe it’ll spread to other game, as well:
“Excuse me, I need a pheasant suit, size 44 Medium”….
So……lemme get this straight. This dude is “preparing” for mountain goat hunting season by TESTING out his new “goat suit”?
Gotta get the mental picture on this one:
Goat man:
“Ok….this is working well! I’m here, in my goat suit, and blending in with the other goats. Oh….look! There’s a group of hunters over there. I wonder why they’re aiming their bows at…………………..THWAP!………..silence.”
The Darwin List has a new entry.
Good point, PGH.
😉
Plus, if you are a REAL goat, don’t you notice that the new, unusually large and rather awkward “goat” in the herd is also packing a quiver and bow across its back?
How stupid IS a goat, anyway? ‘Cause if they’re THAT dumb, do you really have to go to all this trouble? If they fall for THIS, couldn’t you pretty much just walk right up to them and knock ’em out with a frying pan?
I think we need an official Goat Hunter to give us the inside scoop on this.
roflmao
Me, Too!!!!!
Sorry, JTR, the frying pan may be cruel and unusual…..let’s just shoot them with an arrow.
Hey, at least hunting goats, unlike deer (Per Phoebe) you won’t be needing to add insult to injury by dousing yourself in goat pee.
Yeah, the whole dousing-in-pee thing has to be one of the less ….say, “glamorous” ….aspects of hunting.
And personally, I like the idea of the fry pan. It’s a multi-use tool: kill the goat with it, and then cook ’em in the same weapon.
Try doing THAT with a bow!
My arrow doubles as a spit for the fire……
I would expect nothing less from you, Mr. “MacGyver”………..
Aw, come on, you guys. Give goat man some credit. At least he was thinking outside of the box 😉
No argument there!!
🙂
He was so far outside of the box, he couldn’t even SEE the box anymore….
But as my father used to say: just because someone has an original idea, doesn’t make it a good one.
The goat costume just might end up being the “Edsel” of the hunting world.
Actually, he was trying an old Indian trick. Back in the day, they used to drape an old animal skin across their backs so they could get closer to the game. 😉
If this is an accepted practice, okey-dokey.
But it has to be a pretty dumb animal to fall for this guy’s goat suit. You can tell it’s a dude from the picture, which looks like it was taken from a quarter of a mile away…
I think my frying pan theory still holds.
🙂