Franklin Mountains ‘Bob the Goat’ dies after capture
by Priscilla Totiyapungprasert, El Paso Matters
September 10, 2024
The Franklin Mountains goat, known as “Bob” to El Paso residents, has died.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department confirmed the casualty occurred when staff tried to relocate the goat ahead of the upcoming release of desert bighorn sheep. The agency plans to reintroduce the wild sheep into the Franklin Mountains this October, but wanted to move Bob to minimize the risk of disease transmission to the bighorn population.
“A local farm owner kindly agreed to welcome the goat as a new resident on their property,” Lerrin Johnson, a spokesperson for Texas Parks and Wildlife, wrote in an email.
But Bob evaded capture throughout the summer. In the end, the elderly goat did not make it to the farm for retirement.
On Aug. 13, after failed attempts using various capture methods, wildlife workers succeeded in roping the goat, a standard practice in the livestock industry, Johnson told El Paso Matters. The goat died as an “unfortunate and unintended result of the relocation effort,” said Froylán Hernández, leader of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Desert Bighorn Sheep Program.
Hernández said staff collected tissue samples from the goat to better understand its cause of death and determine if the bacteria which causes infectious and fatal pneumonia in bighorn sheep is present in the Franklin Mountains.
Wildlife officials did not provide further details. El Paso Matters asked the agency for more information.
Why the Transmountain goat had to move
Over the last decade, El Pasoans traveling on Transmountain Road and hiking through Smugglers Pass could catch a glimpse of a white goat with curling horns on the rugged slopes.
Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed in 2015 it was a domestic and now feral goat who could have escaped from a nearby farm or been intentionally released on the side of the road. At the time, the agency made no plans to relocate the goat because it would be “difficult and dangerous for both the animal and wildlife officials,” according to the news release.
Goat relocation efforts began after the agency announced in the summer plans to repopulate desert bighorn sheep on the Franklin Mountains. The project is part of a decades-long effort to restore the sheep to their historic mountain ranges in West Texas.
Disease and overhunting nearly wiped out the bighorns. Desert bighorn sheep are vulnerable to a bacteria called Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, or M. ovi, spread by wild and domestic sheep and goats. Exposure to the bacteria is fatal for desert bighorn sheep nine times out of 10, Hernández said in a Texas Standard interview this summer.
“The impact of M. ovi on desert bighorn sheep in Texas has been devastating, and the risk of the ‘Trans Mountain Goat’ spreading the disease was too great to allow it to remain on the mountain during restoration efforts,” Johnson told El Paso Matters. “Keeping it there would have jeopardized the successful establishment of a healthy desert bighorn population.”
Bob the Goat lives on in memories
Bob may not have had many golden years left even before capture.
The goat was at least 9 years old, but suspected to be significantly older, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife. The typical lifespan of domestic sheep and goats in free-range settings is about 10 to 13 years.
Goats are herbivores that can survive in the wild on trees, shrubs and grasses. They grow thick coats in the winter that protect them from cold temperatures and their cloven hooves allow them to climb steep mountain sides.
Spotting the Franklin Mountains goat was like a celebrity sighting.
It took on different names. The most popular seemed to be Bob, though others referred to it as Franklin and sometimes just “the goat.” Texas Parks and Wildlife did not specify the goat’s gender.
Joe Garibay, president of the Borderland Mountain Bike Association, said he saw Bob at long last earlier this year on a drive over Transmountain Road to his parents’ house. His mountain biking friends often shared Bob sightings in the group chat. The goat hung out sometimes right by the railing between the mountain and the road.
Garibay volunteers on guided hikes on the Franklin Mountains. He’s heard the various origin stories that gave Bob an aura of mystery. In one rumor, a developer released a herd of goats on the West Side to take care of a weed problem and Bob roamed away from a life of domesticity.
“I was not as fortunate as others, like my sister, who’s seen him many times,” Garibay said. “I would always keep an eye out for him and when I saw him, I thought, ‘Finally, yes.’”
It’s unclear if there are other feral goats living in Franklin Mountains State Park. El Paso radio station KLAQ reported in 2021 a second goat, dubbed Frankie.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
