No domestic animal has a worse reputation for causing ecological damage than the Goat, Capra hircus. There is no doubt that feral and free-ranging goats, along with other livestock species, have hugely modified many small islands in the tropics and elsewhere (Coblentz 1978). In Britain and Ireland, however, the feral goat occurs mainly in small populations in the uplands and on seacliffs, where its present-day ecological impact is probably less than that of either deep or sheep.