A runaway goat that has wreaked havoc on towns and communities across northwestern Ontario will soon be on a plane heading south if its temporary owners can raise enough money to buy a one-way ticket.
Goaty, as he has been dubbed by local media, caused a stir when he showed up at a powwow on June 12 at Northwest Angle 33 First Nation, 60 km southeast of Kenora, Ont. .
“He wandered around the parking lot a bit and let people pet him,” said Damion Green of Shoal Lake 39 First Nation and attended the event. “He tried to come to the powwow gazebo but no animals are allowed. Then he was escorted out of the gazebo.”
Locals said the goat had also been spotted hanging around Whitefish Bay First Nation, just up the road, before it appeared at the powwow, Green said.
But that was just the start of the Goaty meander in northwestern Ontario.
More than a month after Goaty crashed the powwow, he turned around about an hour away, in Kenora, and was seen munching on weed at the roundabout on St. Hand.
So how did he get there?
“We don’t know,” said Kenora resident Amy Mosionier, who cares for the goat on her family farm. “Only he knows this one.”
“He looked good. He had a nice plump belly,” she said. “He was obviously eating some really good stuff throughout his trip.”
Mosionier thinks Goaty is about a year old. “He doesn’t have a very big goatee. Goats normally have a huge goatee on his front and he has a little baby face.”
But Goaty shouldn’t be too comfortable in his new home because he can’t stay, Mosionier said.
“We just don’t have the space. It’s an older farm. With the current state of our economy, we just can’t do it,” she said.
But Mosionier had no luck finding a house in nearby Goaty.
“Just with the lack of hay and everything and the 30% shortage and the reduction that the government has given to all the big farms and such in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, no one is taking hay eaters right now” , she said.
Ultimately, Mosionier found a home for Goaty at an animal sanctuary in St. Marys, Ontario, but it’s a plane ride and she’ll have to fundraise to buy a one-way ticket for the traveling goat. .
Once he is settled in after his exciting journey, 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 will cost quite a bit of money to bring Goaty to his new home: $600 for the ticket, $300 confinement fee and $175 livestock fee.
“I will miss him 110%,” Mosionier said. “He’s a lover. I’m going to be in tears when I have to send him on the plane.”
Listen to Amy Mosionier’s interview about Goaty:
London morning6:53Galloping goat
London Morning host Rebecca Zandbergen caught up with Amy Mosionier who is caring for a goat that is making headlines in Kenora for wandering the countryside.
cbc
