A herd of goats graze on a fire-prone hill as part of fire prevention efforts on Sept. 26, 2019, in South Pasadena, Calif. The four goats seen running loose in San Francisco’s South Beach neighborhood are not believed to be grazing goats.
Mario Tama/Getty ImagesSeveral goats were seen running loose in San Francisco on Wednesday, and no one seems to know where they came from.
A video posted to Reddit on Wednesday afternoon shows at least four goats running through the South Beach neighborhood near Rincon Hill Dog Park as several onlookers try, unsuccessfully, to corral them. At the end of the video, the goats run off into the distance.
A spokesperson for San Francisco’s Animal Care & Control told SFGATE that a call was received at 3:49 p.m. Wednesday about a gray goat running in traffic. The caller reported that they didn’t know where the goat went after civilians chased it away.
“It’s a really weird one,” said Genevieve Church, executive director of City Grazing, a nonprofit that rents out a herd of goats to graze on properties throughout the Bay Area.
Church said that the goats seen Wednesday don’t seem to belong to any grazing service — she checked the area they were seen in for signs of a grazing installation and didn’t find any fencing, signs or other items that would indicate a controlled graze.
“At this point, the only thing I know is that they weren’t ours. But it’s really odd because there just aren’t that many goat grazing companies that will work in San Francisco,” Church said.
Church added that there’s a possibility the goats might have been meat animals, as they weren’t wearing collars and appeared to be a breed of goats typically used for meat.
“It could be that someone was just transporting meat goats and maybe they got off the truck,” Church said.
There are special requirements for goats to be able to graze in San Francisco proper, Church said, and most grazing companies typically work with anywhere from 50 to 250 animals at a time. Since only four goats were seen Wednesday, she suspects they could have been someone’s private animals.
At this point, Animal Care & Control has received no other information on the incident.
