Major Goat News — December, 2017: The Farmer’s Almanac, in its 200th edition, declares goats “the next ‘it’ animal.”
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Major Goat News — November, 2017: Oregonian Brett Wilson launches a business delivering “goatgrams” for $100. On account of a “no touch” policy, Washington, DC’s department of health continues to forbid goat yoga. A dozen goats in Decatur, Illinois, are hit by a train.
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Major Goat News — October, 2017: In India, 23 goats are killed when a truck overturns, and 400 goats are killed by a high-speed train.
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Major Goat News — August, 2017: Just north of Yellowstone National Park, a goat kicks a rock onto a woman photographing it (the goat), injuring her leg so badly she’s evacuated by helicopter. In Northwestern Montana, an aggressive goat charges a hiker, and the hiker responds by shooting it with a .357. In Portland, Oregon, an aggressive goat named Volt charges a sheriff’s deputy, and the deputy responds by shooting it. A company in Boulder, Colorado holds a “Meet and Bleat.”
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Major Goat News — July, 2017: A goat in suburban Denver shatters the front door of Argonics, Inc. AFSCME local 1668, to which Western Michigan University’s landscaping crew belongs, files a grievance that grass-munching goats are violating the union’s contract.
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Major Goat News — June, 2017: In Hartford, the Yard Goats tie the Flying Squirrels, and crush the Thunder Bats. In Naples, Florida, a burmese python catches a goat, but Scott Dame and his Glock catch the python.
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Major Goat News — May, 2017: A cyclops goat is born in India. A goat named Frosty, in North Carolina, gets a prosthetic leg. Several decapitated goats are discovered in a canal near Fort Myers, Florida.
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Major Goat News — April, 2017: Parents in Zimbabwe may now pay school tuition in goats. A goat named Speedy saves an Arkansas couple from a house fire.
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Major Goat News — March, 2017: A Botswanan woman reveals that ever since her son sustained serious injuries in a boxing match in June of 2009, he has “developed an insatiable sexual appetite for goats.” As a result, relatives have sold their goats, but neighbors who have not present fatal temptations. The Botswana Boxing Association has distanced itself from the matter.
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Major Goat News — February, 2017: A bleating goat near Hattiesburg, Mississippi leads a man to bezoar, which in Medieval times (and Harry Potter) was considered magical. In Turkey, an equally magical geep is born.
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Major Goat News — January, 2017: A goat in Wyoming follows two teenagers to a McDonald’s drive-thru.
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Major Goat News — December, 2016: Employees of Pakistan International Airlines sacrifice a goat on the tarmac at the Islamabad airport. A Maine man is granted permission, on religious grounds, to wear goat horns in his driver’s license photo. A goat in China befriends a monkey.
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Major Goat News — November, 2016: Donald Trump, Jr. kills two goats on a hunting trip in Turkey. An Australian man is hospitalized after wrestling an aggressive goat for over an hour. A goat in New Jersey calms down when wearing a duck costume.
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Major Goat News — October, 2016: Robert Young, owner of three emotional support goats, sues the mayor and city council of Carlisle, Ohio, after the city refuses to grant him an exemption to a 2015 ordinance forbidding the animals. At a ranch in Huajuapan, Mexico, called La Mantaza (“The Killing”), one hundred residents participate in the annual slaughter of more than 1,400 goats in one afternoon. Per ancient tradition, the goats’ blood is used for a sauce called Mole de Caderas. “It’s a brutal sight,” a shopkeeper tells a reporter, “but the result is very delicious.”
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Major Goat News — September, 2016: Ten goats in San Francisco abandon their grazing duties and wander around the streets of Bernal Hill. Goat Man wins an Ig Nobel. Donald Trump, defending the allegation that he pays no taxes (“that makes me smart”), makes no mention of the eight goats he employs at a New Jersey golf club toward that end.
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Major Goat News — August, 2016: A goat in South Africa rides a rhinoceros. Goats in Alberta, Canada spend 30 minutes licking a Mazda clean. Lowering political discourse, representative Dave Brat, of Virginia, writes, “If you want to herd goats, vote Hillary.”
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Major Goat News — July, 2016: In Waroona, Australia, a dozen goats hold up a police car by surrounding it and climbing onto the hood. In Ramygala, Lithuania, a goat named Demyte wins a town beauty pageant after many of her competitors refuse to strut their stuff. Three researchers at Queen Mary University of London suggest that goats are as clever and loving as dogs. 78 goats in southern India are stuck and killed by a train. A woman in eastern India sells her newborn son to pay for two sacrificial goats.
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Major Goat News — June, 2016: In Raigarh, India, members of the Baiga tribe ask owners of India’s largest coal company to sacrifice, per custom, one goat for every bamboo branch to be cut in a sought expansion. “Not even one goat less will do,” a resident says. Two goats in Saugatuck, Michigan go paddleboarding on the Kalamazoo River.
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Major Goat News — May, 2016: Twentyeight goats in California are rounded up by the Alameda County Sheriff’s department and detained at the Santa Rita jail. Seven goats escape from Covington, Kentucky’s Running of the Goats. GoatMan, published by Princeton Architectural Press, boasts this review from the Daily Mail: “[Thomas Thwaites’] book is beautifully designed, with thick, glossy paper and loads of colour photographs of a man in a goat costume clambering over alpine rocks.”
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Major Goat News — April, 2016: A goat in California sneaks into a Starbucks. Goats in Conover, North Carolina sneak into a garage and start a fire.  A Nigerian mob lynches a man accused of kidnapping eight people and turning them into goats.
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Major Goat News — March, 2016: A goat, hired to clear a Cincinnati cemetery of invasive plants, is killed by a dog. 75 goats, hired to munch on invasive plants in a Salem, Oregon park, are fired for eating the non-invasive plants as well, and for “heavily fertilizing” the area. Four goats show up at a Home Depot in New Orleans. A dwarf goat in Oregon gives birth to quintuplets, and a dwarf goat in Utah gives birth to sextuplets, tying the world record.
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Major Goat News — February, 2016: Ten days after escaping from an orthopedic research lab at the University of Iowa, William the goat is recaptured. In Namibia, over three hundred goats perish in heavy rain, and in China, over three hundred perish in a truck fire. Yogis worldwide go nuts over a video of Rachel Brathen doing a yogic squat with a baby goat balanced on her butt.
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Major Goat News — January, 2016: In southern India, a man squeezes two dead goats out of a live python. Having completed basic training, a goat joins the British Army.
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Major Goat News — December, 2015: A goat in Dallas, Texas, sabotages a nativity scene by jumping into Jesus’ manger.
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Major Goat News — November, 2015: A cargo plane carrying two thousand goats from Australia to Malaysia makes an emergency landing in Bali after accumulated goat farts trigger the smoke alarm. Three escaped goats show up at the town hall in Richmond, Rhode Island. North of Philadelphia, two goats run a turkey trot 5k, averaging 7:50 miles. A goat intended to be lunch for a Siberian tiger at a zoo near Vladivostok instead kicks the tiger out of its bedroom and sleeps on its bed.
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Major Goat News — October, 2015: Floridian candidate for the U.S. Senate, Augustus Sol Invictus, admits that two years ago he killed a goat and drank its blood as part of a pagan ritual. In Dabar, Somalia 600 goats perish in heavy rains.
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Major Goat News — September, 2015: A Canadian goat named Goliath wanders into a Tim Horton’s in Saskatoon, and refuses to leave. Goats in New Amsterdam, Guyana, take over the Central Police Station. 102-year-old Kuwarbai Yadav, in Central India, sells her goats to pay for a toilet.
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Major Goat News — August, 2015: Strapped to prosthetic goat-limbs, 34-year-old Thomas Thwaites spends three days roaming the Swiss Alps among a herd of goats hunched over in quasi-disguise. The self-declared “transhumanist” explains to the Daily Mail, “I initially wanted to be an elephant, but it wasn’t going very well. I visited a shaman, and she said ‘you’re an idiot.’ So, I decided to be a goat.” After three days among the goats, and three more days alone, Thwaites begins writing a book about his adventure; it’s called “GoatMan: How I took a holiday from being human,” and is due out in April, 2016.
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Major Goat News — July, 2015: Joseph Chinotimba, a member of Zimbabwe’s parliament, declares on the floor that he has not, as rumor has it, been appointed Minister of Goats. Weeks later, Robert Mugabe declares that goats will not be allowed to roam about Zimbabwe’s capital city. On the slopes of the Welsh mountain Tryfan, members of the Ogwen Valley mountain rescue team discover that apparent cries for help are actually just goats bleating. Near Stockton, California, four goats are killed in a barn fire sparked by spontaneously-combusting manure. Scot and Justina Glassgow, of Rapid City, South Dakota, lose their appeal with the city council to have their backyard goats classified as therapy animals. Ruling on the legality of a hunter who released three dogs on a goat, New Zealand judge Johnathan Down declares, “you cannot just say well it’s hunting, I can do all we like.”
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Major Goat News — June, 2015: Forty-two goats in Thraiyur, India are electrocuted after a powerline snaps in high winds. Upon finding three beheaded goats (along with fruits and vegetables) in black plastic bags, officials in Long Island, New York suspect ritualistic goat killings. Upon finding one severed goat head in her garden, Linconshire, UK resident Charlotte Houlden tells her two daughters merely that their pet goat had died.
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Major Goat News — May, 2015: Master Chief Charlie, the goat-mascot of the Navy cruiser Lake Erie, is kicked off the ship in San Diego. Police in Merrimack, New Hampshire detain two goats, one of which was swimming in a backyard pool. Four baby goats and a kangaroo are stolen from a zoo in Greenville, Wisconsin. In Hong Kong, a Burmese python eats a cat and then a goat, but the goat’s legs get stuck and one of its horns pierces the snake’s skin. In Kenya, Felix Kaprono offers President Obama 50 cows, 70 sheep, and 30 goats for the hand of his daughter Malia.
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Major Goat News — April, 2015: In Connecticut, a goat sneaks into ESPN’s Bristol campus — and a few weeks later, lawmakers there consider euthanizing 95 goats under state care to save money. Two goats in Oklahoma climb the side of a highway bridge. Five runaway goats in Savannah, Georgia are lured into captivity by an animal control officer deploying a bag of Cheetos. At San Francisco’s most popular Goatchella to date, two dozen animal-rights protestors interrupt a goat-sausage-making demonstration, chanting, “For the animals we fight! Exploiting goats is not right!” Sausage-making continues by the unperturbed chef. In China, a mutant six-legged goat is born, and becomes known nationwide as a “spider goat.” Three other goats, tethered to a 25,000-square-foot kite, are sent aloft to celebrate the new year. In Gaza, the Ministry of Agriculture orders a hermaphroditic goat executed, on public health grounds. The goat’s owner refuses to comply with the order, and hides the goat in a barn — but the government, out of concern for citizens convinced that such a goat’s milk has magical curative powers, prevails — and the goat is slaughtered for meat. The government deems the meat safe to eat. To appease the deity of irrigation, men in Thirumalai, India sacrifice 328 black goats, arrange their heads on the steps of the temple, and burn the hides. They, too, eat the meat — and bury the leftovers.
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Major Goat News — March, 2015: Four drunk Indian goats, after two days passed out, are taken to a veterinary clinic to recover from their hangovers. After a “brief hoof chase” police in Seattle take into custody ten goats that had chased a group of children. Border Patrol agents in Texas discover more than $1 million of marijuana in a stock trailer containing 18 goats. Five goats in Augusta, Georgia are killed by dogs. Six goats in India die after being vaccinated by a livestock inspector. An Indian woman is beaten to death after her goats eat her neighbor’s crop of wheat. Amazon begins renting goats.
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Major Goat News — February, 2015: A hippopotamus in Kenya kills and eats three goats. Himalayan lynx in Pakistan kill 18 goats. Not far away, a leopard kills two goats. In Australia, feral goats harrass residents of a village called Wyangala, and 70 goats escape onto a golf course after a truck carrying them crashes. Beside a bike path in Sacramento, California, six beheaded goats are discovered. To celebrate the year of the goat, zookeepers in Yekaterinburg, Russia, use food dye to paint a goat blue.
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Major Goat News — January, 2015: It’s the year of the goat. The USDA’s latest goat census reveals that in 20 counties in Texas goats outnumber people. Nepal Airlines confirms that in 2007, it sacrificed two goats in order to solve an electrical malfunction in a 757. Kenyan authorities declare an invasive and toxic shrub called yellow cestrum responsible for blinding and killing more than 200 goats. Nigerian authorities warn that Boko Haram may soon use goats and other livestock to deliver suicide bombs.
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Major Goat News — December, 2014: A goat in India gives birth to two human-like babies. A goat in the UK sneaks into a police car. 15 goats near Vellamadai, India die of a mysterious disease. In Kenya, assistant village chief Musa Chongo is shot in both legs while attempting to recover 50 stolen goats. In Zimbabwe, a 60-something-year-old man reveals his technique for smuggling marijuana out of the country: by feeding the drug to goats he had starved for a few days, passing through police road blocks, and then collecting the goats’ waste. After 10 days, to celebrate, he slaughtered the goats. Regarding an escaped goat that eluded eight police cruisers in Lowell, Massachusetts, local animal control officer Tim Sullivan tells the local paper, “A goat is more dangerous than you think. They’re not happy creatures. I’ve never run into one that’s laid back.”
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Major Goat News — November, 2014: Putin’s tiger kills 15 goats in China’s Heilongjiang province. 91 goats are struck and killed by lightning in two storms in Namibia. 19 goats in Botswana suffer the same fate. Police in Brooklyn begin investigating the appearance of two bloody goat heads dangling from a lamp post in Park Slope. A Pakistani man and his son are accused of killing (with a hatchet) a 9-year-old boy after his goats wandered onto their land. Officers in Blackman Township, Michigan respond to a report of a goat in the road. In Pokot, Kenya, 50 raiders abduct 425 goats and three boys, two of whom escape. In British Columbia, a man hunting mountain goats falls to his death.
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Major Goat News — October, 2014: 15 goats in eastern Kenya are killed by a mysterious beast. A goat in Milton, Delaware is injured in a drive-by shooting. A routine early-morning patrol in Nigeria turns into a chase when police spot a suspicious-looking Mazda 626 containing three men and 17 stolen goats. A 15-year-old goatherder in Mohanpur, India is beaten, doused in gasoline, and set ablaze after his goats wander onto neighboring property. In southern India, 100 goats are swept away in a flash flood. The landowner survives.
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Major Goat News — September, 2014: In Terrassa, Spain, 17 goats sneak into a train station. Authorities in New Rochelle, New York discover the third decapitated goat of the summer. In northern Wales, a fourth goat is killed by crossbow. Two men in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe are seen having sex with goats. Muslims in Mumbai worry that with goats 50% more expensive than last year, they won’t be able to afford sacrificial goats for Eid.
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Major Goat News — August, 2014: A goat in Emporia, Kansas steals a reporter’s notebook. A goat-sheep hybrid known as a geep is born in Scottsdale, Arizona. Kim Jonh Un, North Korea’s supreme dictator, checks out goats at Korean People’s Army Breeding Station 621. Godwin Chepkurgor, the Kenyan man who once offered Bill Clinton 40 goats and 20 cows for Chelsea’s hand in marriage, dies in a tragic elephant accident.
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Major Goat News — July, 2014: Something on the Philippine Island of Sibale kills seven goats, and the mayor thinks it’s werewolves, dogs, or “vampires disguised as dogs.” The mysterious dark predators apparently drain goats’ blood, eat their hearts and livers, always strike near midnight on the eve of a full moon, and have killed more than 200 goats in the last two years. “It’s a continuing goat massacre,” the mayor tells the Manila Standard. In response, residents arm themselves with knives and sharpened bamboo sticks and conduct nightly patrols. The district governor sends extra police to the island with orders to shoot the elusive beasts on sight.
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Major Goat News — June, 2014: Authorities near Farmington, New Mexico discover a decapitated goat also lacking internal organs. Parched residents of Jamshedpur, India sacrifice goats to appease the god of rain. South of Sydney, Australia, two goats wander into a gun store.
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Major Goat News — May, 2014: Goats stop traffic on Oakland, California’s Highway 24 for 30 minutes. Just west of Baltimore, Maryland, a feisty runaway goat prompts officials to cancel after-school recess at an elementary school. A truck carrying 450 goats catches fire just before dawn near Wagga Wagga, Australia. Israeli soldiers kidnap hundreds of Lebanese goats after an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap two Lebanese shepherds.
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Major Goat News — April, 2014: After trying to hide from an animal control officer, Lonny Kirschbaum, of Des Moines, Iowa, is cited for keeping a goat in city limits. His goat, William, eats the citation. Goats in South Wales break into a cemetery and eat graveside flowers. In London, three goats are abandoned at a church. In Norseman, Australia two goats become known as “ninja goats” after escaping from their enclosure and leading cops into a school and a gas station. In Richmond, Maine, a man calls the police after two goats climb on top of his Ford Focus.
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Major Goat News — March, 2014: A goat head is discovered in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Two dead goats are found in the middle of a road in Blandford, Massachusetts. DC authorities investigate the apparently-sacrificial remains of one goat, two pigeons, and six chickens discovered on a trail in Rock Creek Park. In Kenya, eleven goats in Kwale are struck by lightning and killed, while fifteen goats in Ktengela are killed by a pride of lions. On Maryland’s Eastern Shore, three goats are mysteriously killed. A 20-year-old Nigerian man, claiming he asked a goat’s permission before having sex with it, is sentenced to two weeks in prison. A 23-year-old Zimbabwean man, claiming he was possessed by evil spirits, is convicted of bestiality after shooing away a male goat and having sex with the female goat with whom he (the goat) was occupied. A Nepali man raises a 340-pound goat. Two goats in Allendale, Michigan are suspected in starting a barn fire. Goat-owner David Kremer, of Lebanon, Missouri, seeks a court’s interpretation of just how much of an annoyance or nuisance a goat may be before it is unlawful. Editors of the British newspaper The Argus apologize for misattributing a quote that the “21st century will be remembered for a terrible war between mankind and goats” to the director of a science festival when in fact it was submitted by a reader.
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Major Goat News — February, 2014: The University of Wisconsin hosts the 2014 “Focus on Goats” conference. Researchers in Japan uncover the molecule whose citrus-like odor arouses female goats. A 17-year-old boy from Longview, Washington admits that he killed and skinned a neighbor’s goat to hone his hunting skills. A goat in Florida is eaten by a panther. The mayor of the southwestern English village of Lynton announces that an infamous herd of goats that has terrorized the town since the Middle Ages will finally be culled. Telling the Western Daily Press about the plan to kill a dozen of the marauding beasts, town clerk Kevin Harris says, “We need to do this to get the balance of goats and people in the town right and allow people to lead goat-free lives.”
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Major Goat News — January, 2014: For having sex with a goat, a 21-year-old Malawi man is sentenced to 18 months in jail with hard labor. Three thieves attempt to steal 43 goats from Kenya’s Kilifi prison. A Kenyan pastor named Paul Mutambu is caught with three stolen goats. Four goats in Greensboro, North Carolina, are shot do death. Indian minster Suresh Paswasn sacrifices 29 goats at a temple in Jharkhand to thank the gods for his success. His supporters sacrifice 26 more.
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Major Goat News — December, 2013: Miners in Indonesia decapitate a goat and throw its head into the crater of Mount Ijen.  A 22-year-old Washington man kills a goat with a bow and arrow and is charged with animal cruelty. Armed Kenyan raiders shoot a nine year old boy in the back, take three other boys hostage, and then steal 300 goats belonging to their tribe. Twenty goats in Masinagudi, India, are killed by a tiger, and two, in Tindivanam, are killed by Anthrax. Three dozen goats in Xinjiang, China die of goat plague. Four goats in France outrun an avalanche.
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Major Goat News — November, 2013: In Portland, Oregon, police respond to 1) a report of a goat on a roof and 2) a report of a goat that had been stolen, painted on its horns, and left tied up to a fence. In Weaverville, North Carolina, police respond — unsuccessfully — to a call of a bear eating two pet goats. In Northborough, Massachusetts, a report of loose goats proves unfounded. In Nevada, a police officer pulls over Jose Canseco and discovers, in the back seat of his car, a couple of diaper-wearing goats. In Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park spokeswoman Jackie Skaggs tells the Jackson Hole News and Guide about the development of a plan to eradicate goats from the park. “We can nip this in the bud at an early stage when the population is establishing itself,” she says. “That’s our hope.” In Plovdiv, Bulgaria, police outside the city municipal building deal with Georgi Trenchev, who, along with six goats, stages a protest in demand of a meeting with the mayor. In Durban, South Africa, police respond to the discovery of a secret herd of goats hidden in a forest. In Rhiwderin, Australia, Brian James discovers ten dead goats in a ditch. In Oakey, Australia, Lindsay Taylor is fined $53,000 after more than one hundred decaying carcasses of goats belonging to him are discovered at a nearby slaughterhouse. In Wilcannia, Australia, a banana truck crashes when the driver swerves to avoid hitting goats in the road. Two goats are stolen from a farm in Pennsville, New Jersey. Two goats are stolen from a pen in Swanick, England. Christopher Clarke, of St. Catherine, Jamaica, tells the local newspaper that he aims to deter theft by installing alarms on his goats.
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Major Goat News — October, 2013: In Pakistan, the National Goat Show promotes the apparently non-contradictory aims of raising goats for pets and raising goats for sacrifices. In Langobaya, Kenya, a goat thief named Kesi Muhambi is caught and stoned to death. A New York City based design firm begins selling $50 vials of gold-dusted goat poop pellets. Responding to a report of a goat at large, animal control officers in Des Moines, Iowa chase a goat into a car dealership. In Bozeman, Montana, “goat crazy” hunter and Rocky Mountain Goat Alliance founder Peter Muennich seeks nonprofit recognition from the IRS. During the government shutdown, at least five dozen goats are furloughed.
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Major Goat News — September, 2013: To “empower and inspire” the goat industry, the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University hosts the National Goat Convention. To celebrate Goat Week, Modern Farmer sets up an official goat cam. To celebrate International Goat Days, in Millington, Tennessee, organizers put on two goat shows and a milking demonstration. To report two goats on his front lawn, a man in Northborough, Massachusetts calls the police. To report two goats eating plants in her backyard, Sharon Dyer, of Fort Worth, Texas, calls 911. When the operator asks if she needs police, fire, or an ambulance, Dyer says, “No, this is goats.” In Kelso, Washington two goats are killed by lightning. Near Bethlehem, PA three goats are killed by two pit bulls. In Durban, South Africa, a dozen dead goats are found dumped in a river.  In Kanchapur, Nepal, 92 goats are killed by a leopard. In Lalmonirhat, Bangladesh, hundreds of goats succumb to goat plague.
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Major Goat News — August, 2013: In Agawam, Massachusetts, a seven-year goat dispute reaches federal court when Alan and Suzanne Griffin ask a judge from the U.S. District Court to block the Agawam Building Department’s imminent attempt, at the order of the Boston Land Court, to remove their goats. In violation of residential zoning laws, the Griffins keep the goats because Suzanne Griffin suffers from colitis and needs raw goat milk. For the mental anguish caused by discrimination and violations of civil rights, the couple seeks two million dollars in damages. Judge Kenneth Neiman denies the preliminary injunction, ruling it “difficult to find the kernel” of 14th amendment discrimination on behalf of Agawam, and orders the Griffins to make their case in state courts. Alan Griffin tells the Springfield Republican, “I’m going to fight like hell when they come here to take my animals. I have rights and I will defend my rights.” Officials from the Oregon Public Health Division suspect a herd of wild goats in an outbreak of cryptosporidium in Baker City. In central Florida, eight more goats are killed by a bear. In Le Roy, Illinois, two goats are killed when a cigarette sparks a fire in a trailer.
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Major Goat News — July, 2013: Mike Bus, of Rock Rapids, Iowa, shoots three of his neighbor’s Saint Bernards after they killed two of his show goats. Citing property laws, the county sheriff makes no arrests and plans to file no charges. Somalian Rashid Kibaga pleads guilty in an Irish court to torturing, terrifying, and killing four goats, saying he did not know skinning and beheading them in a private house was illegal in Ireland. Arousing the suspicions of Israeli border police, a 30-year-old man is caught with 20 goats (one of them dead) in the back of his car just south of Haifa. In central Florida, four goats are killed by a bear. Terry and Laurie Carlson, of Dallas, Oregon, open the country’s first (and world’s second) goat museum. According to Laurie, the holder of a PhD in history, the museum is dedicated to examining 10,000 years of the “most beneficial partnership in history.”
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Major Goat News — June, 2013: Three goats in Chennai, India are jailed for damaging a brand new police car. An escaped goat in Visalia, California eludes capture by police for hours. SPCA officers, catching the goat in a McDonald’s parking lot, nickname it Big Mac. 41-year-old Shaun Orris, of Waukesha, Wisconsin, is arrested for drunkenly insisting, at 2:45AM, in his constitutional right to have sex with a goat. A 29-year-old Ghanian man drowns while trying to save one of his goats. In eastern Malaysia, a goat is eaten by a 12-foot python. In Madurai, India, a mysterious illness kills 32 goats. A company in New Zealand called Technipharm begins selling a $1500 stainless steel anal goat vibrator. The company calls it an Animal Control Unit, and says it’s for pacifying goats while trimming hooves, or castrating them, or branding them, or engaging in a wide variety of veterinary services.
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Major Goat News — May, 2013: Four goats are stolen from a farm in Millersburg, Pennsylvania. Three goats are stolen from a house near Greensboro, North Carolina. Three goats are stolen from a farm in Smyrna, South Carolina. Two goats are stolen from a field near Briston, England. Nine goats in Tonasket, Washington, are killed by dogs. Two goats in Castlecliff, New Zealand are killed by a dog. Melting snow in India’s Changthang hills reveals 27,000 dead goats. Two escaped goats snarl traffic in Milwaukie, Oregon. Another snarls rush-hour traffic for two hours on the Pulaski Skyway in Jersey City, New Jersey. A goat in Newfoundland rides a horse.
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Major Goat News — April, 2013: In Shamshabad, India, two members of a goat-thief gang are caught by police after running over a victim with their van. In Ranapur, India, students, teachers, and politicians sacrifice more than 500 goats a day near the idol of Baba Dongar, a tribal god believed to make wishes come true. In a midnight sting off of Mumbai, the Indian coast guard intercepts a suspicious boat out of Dubai sailing in discreet waters. Its cargo includes 33 goats, 450 cases of cigarettes, and two televisions. Authorities x-ray all of the goats, and surgically examine a handful — finding a “suspicious black powder” in three of them. In Kenya, fifty goats in Othaya are killed to celebrate the election of parliament member Mary Wambui. Another three goats, in Ukambani, are killed by lightning. Thirty-eight goats in Laikpia are stolen by AK-47-armed midnight raiders. An Arizona man is accused of murdering his neighbors after a goat-related dispute. A Vermont man is cleared of wrongdoing after leaving 17 dead goats to decay in a field. Dogs kill nine goats in Frederick, Maryland; three goats in Bundaberg, Australia; and 160 goats in Stockton, California. Two goats, in Boise, Idaho are killed by a black bear. Four goats die in bar fire near Orem, Utah. Five decapitated goats found on a beach in Miami, Florida are presumed to have died in Santeria or Palo Mayombe rites. Due to overcrowding, Austrian officials decide to shoot 30 mountain goats in Wiener Neustadt this summer. An Icelandic goat attends dog training school. The head of a goat is delivered to Chicago’s Wrigley Field. In Butte, Montana, a goat walks into a bar.
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Major Goat News — March, 2013: To stave off the efforts of a goat-smuggling cartel, allegedly in cahoots with local government,  residents in Baringo, Kenya threaten to burn any vehicles containing animals. Police respond by impounding 250 stolen goats. Later, Ethiopians respond to the theft of 100 goats by holding four alleged Kenyan goat-raiders hostage for at least one week. 65-year-old Michael “the goat man” Chester appears before a Cornwall magistrates court after an animal health inspector discovers that he actively violated a 2009 court-ordered ban on keeping goats. Chester is fined 250 pounds, given an afternoon curfew, and banned from keeping farm animals for another year. Two Oxford researchers, studying feral (and particularly hairy) goats on the Scottish Isle of Rum, conclude in current issue of the ecological journal Oikos that climate change could cause goat populations to skyrocket. In barn fires, 55 goats die in Janesville, Wisconsin, and 30 goats die near Louisville, Kentucky. Ten goats in Malaysia are killed by a panther. One goat in Georgia is killed by a coyote.
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Major Goat News — February, 2013: Wandering New Mexican goats, headbutting windows and doors, attempt to break in to the Roswell Corrections Center. Another goat, wandering onto Atlantic Avenue, in Brooklyn, New York, is wrangled by the NYPD. In Brooklyn, Australia, 30 goats go on a rampage. 28 goats die in a barn fire in Allentown, Pennsylvania. 63 goats die in a barn fire in Northwood, Iowa. Two goats die in Pasadena, California after being attacked by a dog. Two goats are stolen from Husfeld’s Tree and Goat Farm, in DeLand, Florida. Kenyan senate candidate Ephraim Maina accuses rival Mutahi Kagwe of destroying thousands of political posters, but it turns out hungry goats are to blame.
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Major Goat News — January, 2013: Police in Liberty Township, Pennsylvania investigate the disappearance of two dozen goats, and police in Chelmsford, Massachusetts respond to reports of “loose goats,” while USDA officials near Santa Cruz, California discover a “secret herd” of 800 goats housed in an unreported biotech facility. Police in Mobile, Alabama arrest 29-year-old Elijah Aikins after discovering two goats in the trunk of his car. Authorities in Osogbo, Nigeria arrest five goats for roaming, a violation under Waste Management Agency Coordinator Henry Ogunbanwo’s zero-tolerance environmental laws. A judge in Sydney, Australia dismisses felony charges against a goat named Gary, citing his negligent rather than malicious behavior. A dozen goats, hanging out on tracks south of Albuquerque, are killed by a freight train. Another dozen burn to death in a tunnel in Sofia, Bulgaria. (In a separate incident, 27 tons of goat cheese catch on fire and burn for five days in a tunnel in Norway.) Two goats at a zoo in Monroe, Louisiana are fatally injured by a pack of stray dogs. A goat in Otago, New Zealand is fatally shot by a poacher. Hours after five goats escape from Desario Diaz’s Prunedale, California property, his neighbor, Phillip Dexter, shoots Diaz and one of his goats with a shotgun. After a goat headbutts and knocks over Florida WWSB reporter Linda Carson, CNN’s Anderson Cooper adds goats — “All of ’em: goats in general and a few goats in particular” — to his “ridiculist,” citing Gary (see above) and Voldemort (see November.) “Let’s think about this, now,” Cooper says. “We got goats knocking paperboys off bikes, knocking reporters off their feet, and vandalizing public property. I’m starting to wonder if the goats are trying to take over. ”
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Major Goat News — December, 2012:  Jamaican investigator Owen Wright is detained after shooting and killing three of his neighbor’s goats, then dumping them in a pit toilet.  George, the mascot of the Royal Air Force’s Halton airbase, dies of a goat illness. Bill, the mascot of the U.S. Naval Academy, is stolen from a farm near Fort Meade, Maryland — presumably by West Point cadets — and found tied up on a median near the Pentagon.
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Major Goat News — November, 2012: While delivering papers before dawn in Smithfield, Utah, 14-year-old Jaxon Gessel is attacked by a goat named Voldemort. After getting headbutted off his bike, Gessel tries to jump back on and pedal away. Voldemort stands up on his hind legs, wraps his front legs around Gessel, pulls him off, then tramples him. Gessel flees to safety up a nearby tree. After half an hour, Gessel climbs down, and is chased back up the tree by Voldemort. He spends another hour in the tree before officer Brandon Muir, alerted by Gessel’s parents of a missing child, arrives on the scene. “It made a weird noise, kind of like a grunting noise,” Gessel later tells the Deseret News. “I’m like, what the heck is that? It just freaked me out… That was a freaky goat. I think it’s like possessed or something.”
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Major Goat News — October, 2012: British health officials, investigating a SARS-like respiratory virus, are suspicious of the role of goats in spreading the disease. Salt Lake County Animal Control, investigating a report of goat tied up outside a bar in Salt Lake City, Utah, are suspicious of its out-of-state owner, Steve Wescott, and haul the animal away. Health officials from North Carolina’s Cleveland County, investigating goat excrement within Burns High School’s Ron Green Stadium, are suspicious of the potential for an E. Coli outbreak, and encourage principal Aaron Allen to relocate six months of upcoming football and soccer games to a nearby high school. In celebration of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, tens of millions of goats are slaughtered around the world. While picking up a boat trailer in Orland, California, 47-year-old David Parcell accidentally lets his sister’s goats escape from a yard, and a dispute, eventually involving a 911 call, ensues. Parcell punches his sister in the face, tries to stab her boyfriend with a stick, throws a bowl at his sister’s pregnant daughter, and punches her in the face, too.
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Major Goat News — September, 2012: Responding to a call about two aggressive goats at large, police in Caledonia, Wisconsin employ a siren and car horn to shoo the animals out of the middle of the road. Responding to a call about a very aggressive goat, deputy sheriff John Terry, in Yosemite Lakes Park, California tries pepper spray — to no avail — before shooting the 60-pound animal. Responding to a call regarding the discovery of a severed goat head on a resident’s porch, police in Matapuna, New Zealand dismiss claims of a crime. Responding to a call regarding a hoof abscess, untrimmed hooves, and low weight, the local humane society northwest of Ann Arbor, Michigan seizes two horses, four donkeys, and two goats. Responding to a 2010 inspection that found goat neglect in a testing lab, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service fines the University of Wyoming $8,571. Responding to a herd of goats running over a car being searched by police in Soweto, South Africa, one officer yells, “Arrest those goats, they are destroying the crime scene!”  Responding to Lizzie Crocker, of the Daily Beast, Rapper Wyclef Jean describes the time in 1994 when he brought a rare Mexican goat onstage with the Fugees at a New York club: “The lights were dim and the only thing the women in the front row could see is a white unicorn with red eyes and big horns running around. I start rocking with the group and of course the goat gets a little terrified by the loud music. And when goats get nervous, they start to shit. All these fancy women… start freaking out. It’s not a good feeling to see fly girls holding their noses and telling us to get off the stage.”
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Major Goat News — August, 2012: After years of chomping on grass rich in strontium-90, thanks to a nearby nuclear power plant, a radioactive goat named Katie dies in Waterford, Connecticut. A goat goes skateboarding. Two goats wander though White Plains, New York, mystifying detectives. Referring to two months of throwing rocks, shooting paintballs, sounding horns, and spraying chemicals at aggressive goats in Washington’s Olympic peninsula, acting Hood Canal Ranger District Forest Supervisor Amanda McAdams says,”We need to give our strategy time to work.”
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Major Goat News — July, 2012: X-Rated Rima, one of several hundred Alpine goats exhibited at the national goat championships in Loveland, Colorado, is declared the winningest, based on appearance, milk quality, size, and teets. Dr. Anselm London, Tobago’s Secretary of Finance and Enterprise Development, forms a Goat Racing Committee and urges a major expansion of the goat racing industry in Trinidad and Tobago, with prizes and betting at regularly-scheduled races. “There would have to be a joint collaborative effort in this initiative,” he says, “to see the stage where it will be considered a full-time money-making business activity and not a part-time leisure activity.” Two goats, and their owners, are evicted from an apartment in New Haven, Connecticut. A couple in Bownhelp Township, Ohio, alleges that someone smashed one of their bedroom windows, damaged their Ford truck, and killed five of their goats. A 14-year-old in Athens, Georgia calls the police after discovering a beheaded goat on a path to a basketball court; upon investigation, an officer discovers two more beheaded goats, as well as a beheaded chicken and a decapitated rooster. After photographer Coty Creighton, in Ogden, Utah captures images of an unidentified person in a furry white goat suit complete with fake horns and beard “mingling” with a herd of wild goats on Ben Lomond Peak, he tells the Division of Wildlife Resources that he “thought it was a deformed goat,” struggling to scramble down a hill. “It was clumsy, not nimble,” he says.
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Major Goat News — June, 2012: Along with 3,000 bananas and 20 pig tails, the Jamaican Olympic team ships 30 goat heads to their training camp in Birmingham. Danny Boyle, artistic director of the 2012 Olympics, announces that the opening ceremony, depicting the English countryside, will feature 119 barnyard animals, including two goats. A USPS mailman, in Etna, Maine, runs over a pet goat named Boomerang. 85-year-old Paul Blasingame is caught on video stealing two goats from a barn belonging to the Garland, Texas Independent School District, where he worked as a janitor for 30 years. In Simsbury, Connecticut, four goats are removed from the roof of the high school. Near Hilton Head, South Carolina, a pit bull allegedly kills three goats. In India, the army begins seeking thousands of Punjabi goats to feed soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a livestock disease kills 75,000 goats, and threatens a million more, according to the U.N.
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Major Goat News — May, 2012: Zambian officials agree to supply half a million goat hides a year for the interiors of Mercedes Benz and Tata automobiles in India, though how, exactly, they will produce so many remains a mystery. Five thousand goats in Erode, India, are sacrificed in a ritual to foster fertility. Tata does not inquire about their hides.
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Major Goat News — April, 2012: Upsetting sports fans across the world, Kazakhstan’s Agency for Sports and Physical Training Affairs begins trial games of Buzkashi with fake plastic (decapitated) dummy goats. The CDC warns doctors about the Orf virus, often transmitted by petting or slaughtering goats, and misdiagnosed as anthrax. Eighty-two-year-old Emerita Guzman, in Manila, is killed after trying to untangle her goat’s leash, when it wraps around her neck and strangles her.
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Major Goat News — March, 2012: A goat named Cocoa eats a jumbo slice at Famous Famiglia’s, in New York City. A different goat escapes from the Ravenna, Michigan livestock sale and cracks the window of a nearby storefront. A goat belonging to Brooke Trometer, of North Fort Myers, Florida, is mysteriously decapitated. Five dead goats on a farm in Oelwein, Iowa, compel authorities to charge Tracy Rupright with five misdemeanors for improper disposal. Noting a general decline in goat populations, scientists at the Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology announce the first successful cloning of a pashmina goat, and say they plan to spread goat-cloning knowledge across the Indian Himalayas. Noting the spread of spray-painted red goats in Kingston, New York, Alderman Thomas Hoffay calls it gang graffiti. “Bloods, Crips, goats,” he says, “It’s all the same.”
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Major Goat News — February, 2012: Having prodded with a snow shovel and thrown Corona bottles to no effect, Debra Giuliani, in Abbotsford, British Columbia, calls the police, reporting that she is “being held hostage” in her house by a goat standing on her porch and headbutting her door. Two officers arrive and resolve the situation. The story gets little media attention. Dana Tyson earns the title “goat whisperer” by out-milking competitors at the Houston Livestock Show’s Rodeo Celebrity Dairy Goat Milking Competition. The story gets slightly more media attention. A goat goes surfing at Pismo Beach, California. The story gets more media attention. In the journal Animal Behaviour, Drs. Elodie Briefer and Alan McElligott describe using secret microphones to record four herds of goats over a couple of months, and their subsequent analysis of “vocal ontogeny,” revealing that goats can develop regional accents. This trait, they say, puts goats alongside humans. This story gets the most media attention.
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Major Goat News — January, 2012: Oregon resident Hunter Goldberg, descendant of William the Conquerer, tries to steal a goat so that he can sacrifice it on New Year’s Eve, but is foiled by police, who discover two machetes in his car and charge him with conspiracy. Ten police officers in Khatmandu, Nepal, are accused of stealing, killing, and butchering goats, then selling the meat, thereby turning a police station into a “goat slaughterhouse.” A goat named Izak, in Dover, New Hampshire, bites Jon Huntsman on the knee. A fugitive goat named Curly, in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, is found on a farm 25 days after fleeing a nativity scene. A mountain lion in Oak Glen, California sneaks into a petting zoo and kills 13 goats. Three high school students in El Dorado Springs, Missouri, steal, beat and kill three goats. A dog in South Devon, England, attacks and kills five pet goats. Wild dogs in Uganda’s Nakaseke district kill at least 200 goats. A barn fire in Fort Myers, Florida kills 15 goats. A virus in Karachi, Pakistan kills more than 30 goats. A Tucson meteorologist claims to have spotted the mythical Chupacabra, or goat sucker, though no goats are reported injured or killed.
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Major Goat News — December, 2011: Prosecutors charge 33-year-old Nick Ashline with three felonies for hiring an assassin to kill two goats belonging to Vermont state game warden Steve Majeski, who had earlier investigated Ashline for illegally shooting a deer. Researchers in England, studying the reproductive habits of wild Italian male goats, determine that they (the goats) “can have fun in their youth, or enjoy their old age, but they can’t do both.” Two goats in Martinsville, Virginia die after being bitten by a skunk. After a 34-year old Zimbabwe man is caught having sex with a goat, he is ordered to pay its dowry and marry it.
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Major Goat News — November, 2011: The Department of Agriculture announces it will abandon its annual goat census. Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary announces that passengers to Greece can pay for flights with goats. Three pit bulls sneak into a goat pen in Los Angeles and kill 42 goats. A man in Davis, California kills 15 goats by driving into a herd of them. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma teams up with thee bluegrass musicians to perform the Goat Rodeo Sessions, though neither a goat nor a rodeo is involved.
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Major Goat News — October, 2011: Theodore, the grand-prize winning goat at the Colorado State Fair, is disqualified for doping. Zottel and Mimu, goat mascots of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, are kidnapped, tied to a tree, and painted black. A small French medical study links exposure to goats with a five-fold increase in P-ADC lung cancer. Confounding all who study evil, Jim Welch is developing a Nintendo game called Goats vs. Nazis.
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Major Goat News — September, 2011: The 2011 World Championship BBQ Goat Cook-Off is held in Brady, Texas, with the theme “No goats, no glory.” Going above and beyond the Goat Action Plan, rangers at Olympic National Park spend three days shooting paintballs at an aggressive, 300-pound goat before finally killing it with a real gun. A few hundred goats in Sri Lanka, destined to ritual decapitation as part of an annual Hindu ceremony, are saved by Buddhist protesters. In the wake of a biology classroom fiasco, in which at least two dozen Chinese students contracted severe brucella melitensis after dissecting goats, two school officials are fired. A truck driven by Lois Faller in Wichita, Kansas, blows a tire and overturns, spilling 224 goats onto the Kansas Turnpike.
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Major Goat News — August, 2011: In Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, after a night of drinking, two teenagers stab two goats to death. A goatnapping is reported in Portland, Oregon. Another is stymied in Mankato, Minnesota, when two stepsisters, ages 6 and 7 are caught, just before midnight, in pajamas, with a goat they freed from the Sibley Park Zoo. Pat Lee, a resident of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, spots a would-be burglar, with a loaded shotgun, petting a goat in her backyard. Covering the nitty gritty of sports, ESPN reports how Jimmy Baron, while playing for the Turkish Basketball League, was invited by his coach into a circle with his teammates, where, after a goat was beheaded with a machete, the players stuck their fingers in the blood from its neck, and wiped it on their foreheads. Forty goats die in a barn fire in Grand Falls, New Brunswick, Canada. Senator Tom Coburn declares a $300,000 federal research grant to Langston University’s American Institute for Goat Research, to study the best way to fence goats, wasteful.
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Major Goat News — July, 2011: Barak killed his goats, so Vincent Jerome Clay shot Barak, the neighbor’s Rottweiller. A jury near Pensacola, Florida, finds Clay not guilty. A Landslide in Lakki, Pakistan kills over 700 goats. Officials at Washington’s Olympic National Park produce a “mountain goat action plan,” urging visitors, among other things, not to pee along Hurricane Ridge and other areas of “high goat use.”
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Major Goat News — June, 2011: It’s officially Goat Trauma Awareness Month. Four thousand goats die in China’s eastern Jiangsu province after receiving bad goat-pox vaccines. A San Diego high school security guard discovers, in the predawn hours before graduation, a dead goat with its legs, nose, and mouth duct taped shut. Jim Decker, hiking near Washington’s Lake Cushman, is stalked and charged by an aggressive goat. After a mile, he removes his pack and pulls out a knife, “ready for a showdown,” before other hikers scare the goat away. A 30-year old woman in Clover, South Carolina calls 911 on account of a dark goat with six-inch horns that is attacking her home. In Washington and Montana, a rare bacterial infection called Q fever spreads from goats to humans and sickens at least 11 people.
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Major Goat News — May, 2011: Mark Zuckerberg kills a goat with a knife, posts it on Facebook, and tells Fortune magazine that it was part of a “personal challenge.” A 19-year-old West Virginia man, high on bath salts, wearing a bra and panties, is caught with his pants down beside a dead goat, in a pink collar, in a pool of blood. “Normal” Americans begin to crave Moroccan Argan oil, which is derived from the oil from the nut of the Argan tree, eaten and excreted by goats. A New Hampshire resident accuses a goat of setting his barn on fire. Two Nigerian men, accused of stealing a goat, tell a judge that the devil made them do it. Staff at Australia’s Yathong Nature Reserve forsake traps, instead shooting goats from the air. In Pakistan, officials discover a freezer full of goat meat at Osama Bin Laden’s compound, and (separately) a snow leopard kills 68 goats in one night.
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Major Goat News — April, 2011: BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina launches the Scapegoat campaign, employing six goats dressed up as an attorney, doctor, insurer, patient, pharmaceutical rep, and hospital administrator, below the phrase “who’s responsible for rising medical costs?” Twelve hundred miles away, standing firm against slippery slope arguments, Minneapolis city council members draw the line at chickens, honeybees, ducks, and pigeons, declaring goats unwelcome in the city. Though across the river, St. Paul allows allows horses, pigs, deer, alligators, and goats, Council member Meg Tuhill is unswayed. “I do not want hoofed animals next door to me,” she says. “I’m fine with bees, and I’m fine with chickens, but I spent enough time on farms as a kid picking cucumbers for pickle factories, cleaning barns, slopping the pigs, the whole shooting match. I’ve chosen not to have that lifestyle. And for those of you that are unfamiliar with that lifestyle, when the wind blows the right way, it can be very fragrant in our homes.”
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Major Goat News — March, 2011: Vice presidential candidate Fola Adeola and other ACN-party chieftains make a risky forced landing in Bauchi on account of an invasion of rampaging goats on the Abuja airport runway. Campaign spokesman Ibrahim Modibbo says he suspects political sabotage — taking Nigerian election fraud to new levels — and calls for an immediate investigation. On the stairs leading to the Cedar River swim area in Renton, Washington, a dismembered goat head and feet are found on a Friday afternoon. In Limerick, Ireland, a gang of ten kids tortures a goat for hours by, among other methods, hitting it with golf clubs. In South Australia, the Department of Environment is tracking goats and other feral pests via satellite.
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Major Goat News — February, 2011: Claiming that two of her Hawaiian neighbors killed two of her goats and told her, “That’s what happens when you piss people off,” Roseanne Barr files a request for a restraining order. Scores of goats south of Sacramento find an opening in a fence and wander onto Interstate 5 during evening rush hour. Traffic backs up for miles, one driver ends up in the hospital, dozens of goats die, and at least one California Highway Patrol officer kills the mortally-wounded goats. Cincinnati Police Department Detective Charles Zopfi examines video of four shoppers buying goat heads at Jungle Jim’s International Market, hoping to identify suspects who, two months earlier, left three goat heads on neighborhood porches and nailed a fourth to a homemade cross at Our Lord Christ the King Parish church. Two of the suspects check out fine in interviews, while the other two, Zopfi determines, “were buying other items that made it look like a legitimate purpose,” he says, likely for a party or get-together.
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Major Goat News — January, 2011: Pleading guilty to an Ukwangali traditional court of having sex with many goats, an illiterate Namibian man identified as Ngongo admits that he marked the hoofs of the animal which best satisfied his needs. Not one to suffer fools gladly, Richard Burley, a 58-year-old county commissioner in Warrenton, Georgia who lost 14 goats to a dog attack, is arrested for allegedly dumping two dead goats in the yard of the dog owner. A Swiss chemist who developed “alpine Viagra” from the ground-up horns of mountain goats is selling 50ml spray bottles of the stuff for $50.
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Major Goat News — December, 2010: A deputy sheriff in Dallas, Texas impounds a goat named Minelli, locking her up with other homeless goats, but a county commissioner interferes with justice. The Kenya Police Reserve cracks down, too, after 14 people — including two police reservists and an assistant chief — are killed in violent goat raids. Not psyched about Austine Ubaike’s habit of slaughtering two goats a week, the city of Meriden, Connecticut bans the practice. (Ubaike plans to appeal — all the way to federal court — in the name of cultural and religious freedom.) Paul Malouf, from Rossmore, Australia, is fined $8,000 for neglecting to care for eight goats. Egon Oyarzun, the owner of Goats R Us, faces felony charges in Oakland, California two months after 10 of his goats are found dead. Joe Orlow, in Silver Spring, Maryland, tries, shortly before midnight, to milk an ornery goat that’s “screaming his head off,” but the cops don’t care. Schools in Kathmandu close for the observance of a one-day holiday entailing the sacrifice of more than 2,500 goats. Lacking evidence of satanic symbols, pentagrams, or other clues, Detective Charles Zopfi tries to figure out why someone left two goat heads in a classy Cincinnati neighborhood. “I don’t think this is anything where somebody just decided, oh, today I’m gonna get up and place a goat head on somebody’s porch,” he says. “There’s a meaning behind it, but right now, we don’t know what it is.”
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Major Goat News — October, 2010: After trying to shoo a mountain goat off of a trail in Washington’s Olympic National Park, Robert Boardman, 63, is attacked and killed. The animal stands over Boardman’s body, refusing to budge for 15 minutes, while others shout and throw rocks. “The mountain goat was terribly aggressive,” a witness says. “It wouldn’t move. It stared us down.”
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Major Goat News — July, 2010: 59-year-old Walter Kaiser tumbles 50 feet down Austria’s Hochkesslekopf Mountain after a mountain goat knocks him off the trail. He is rushed to a hospital, and suffers only minor injuries.
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Major Goat News — August, 2009: A Minnesota woman, caught with a shaved, spraypainted, tied-up goat in the trunk of her car, is charged with animal cruelty.
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Major Goat News — March, 2009:  Assemblyman Gregory Ball, known for promoting animal rights legislation, finds a dead goat on his doorstep in Patterson, New York.
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Major Goat News — January, 2009: Police in Lagos, Nigeria detain a goat, claiming it is actually a transformed armed robber who tried to steal a Mazda 323. Acclaimed New York Times war journalist Dexter Filkins writes a dispatch from Afghanistan about the ancient sport of Buzkashi, in which three teams of men on horseback in a dusty field compete to 1) scoop up the 70-lb carcass of a frozen, beheaded, disemboweled goat; 2) gallop around a pole 75 yards away with it; and 3) race back to their goal with it still in their possession. Each goal is worth 1 point, and games often go to 30. Basically, Filkins writes, it’s like “polo played with a dead animal.”
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Major Goat News — September, 2008: During a “routine jail visit” in Kinshasa, Deputy Justice Minister Claude Nyamugabo discovers one dozen incarcerated goats, and orders them released.
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Major Goat News — April, 2008: A resident in Maple Lane, Georgia observes a goat dancing on top of his car.
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Major Goat News — December, 2007: As part of a 41-year-old Christmas tradition, residents in Gavle, Sweden, construct a a 40-foot-tall, 4-ton straw goat; and to protect it (in its 41 incarnations, the goat has been destroyed 28 times — 22 times by burning, and 6 by sabotage or crashing a car into it) they impregnate it with a waterproof/snowproof flame retardant, monitor it via a webcam, and post guards overnight to protect it from vandals. The Christmas goat survives.
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Major Goat News — November, 2007: Tracey Arnold, a 26-year-old Australian woman, is fined, forced to undergo psychiatric treatment, and instructed by a court to apologize for getting drunk at a Friday the 13th party, stealing a goat, breaking into a church, slaughtering the goat in a satanic ritual inside the church, taking some photos of her friends and the detached goat head, and then putting the detached goat head in her freezer. Arnold’s lawyer tells the court that “when she drank alcohol she made poor decisions.”
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Major Goat News — September, 2007: The Goat Justice League successfully lobbies Seattle lawmakers to amend the land-use code to legalize goats in town as long as they’re dehorned, neutered, and kept in yards.  Upon the bill’s unanimous approval, Seattle Councilmember Richard Conlin, who sponsored the bill, says, “One small step for man, one giant step for goatkind.”
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Major Goat News — May, 2007: According to the New York Times, “It is a battle of man versus goat” on the Galapagos Islands, where park officials and the Charles Darwin Foundation are struggling to exterminate 140,000 goats with semiautomatic rifles, one million rounds of US-imported ammunition, exploding bullets, goat-sniffing dogs, and goat snipers in helicopters.
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Major Goat News — April, 2007: Sony Computer Entertainment apologizes for a publicity stunt promoting the launch of the PlayStation game God Of War II, in which guests at an event were invited to reach inside the still-warm carcass of a decapitated goat and eat offal from its stomach.
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Major Goat News — September, 2006: A Swiss man, caught in Ontario going 100mph in a 60mph zone, tells police that he was merely “taking advantage of the ability to drive fast without hitting a goat.”
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Major Goat News — August, 2006: After a Sudanese man by the name of Tombe is caught having sex with a goat, he is forced by the local council of elders to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars and to take the goat as his wife.