The real story behind Morocco's tree-climbing goats

  • 📰 NatGeo
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 97 sec. here
  • 3 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 42%
  • Publisher: 51%

United States Headlines News

United States Latest News,United States Headlines

Drought, desperation, and tourism: There's more to Morocco's tree-climbing goats than meets the eye

It’s a challenging Friday morning for Jaouad Benaddi. He’s been trying to get his goats to climb an argan tree and settle in its gnarled, thorny branches. None of the 12 are cooperating.

Animal welsfare advocates and ecologists say that making goats stand in argan trees for hours is bad for the animals and bad for the trees.Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. He says he started putting goats in the tree in 2019 after his wheat crop failed. Back then on a good day, at least 10 vehicles would stop, and he’d take home about $20. Then during the pandemic lockdown, all but one of his 13 goats starved to death. Since February, when Morocco reopened, Benaddi has acquired a new herd—the dozen animals he and Khalid were cajoling up the tree that Friday morning. But he says he’s lucky now if three cars stop to gawk.

Back at Benaddi’s argan tree, when it’s time for his goats to go home, 11 get down easily. Khalid climbs up to coax the straggler, a female, while his older brother, Abdelmajid, tosses small stones at her, then uses a stick to agitate the branch she’s standing on. The goat teeters and crashes to the ground, a fall of about 12 feet. After a few attempts, she struggles to her feet, and as the others walk to their pen, she trails behind, limping.

“While the activity might appear to be benign, it is animal cruelty,” she says. Tourists, she adds, “are essentially getting photos of living props. What’s going on here is not natural. It’s coerced, and any time you introduce an element of coercion, it’s not relevant whether their bodies can manage to stand on trees.”

About half-a-mile along the road from Benaddi’s argan, Miloud Banaaddi—who also has had to give up farming and is training his eight new goats to perch in his almond tree—dismisses any notion that what he’s doing is cruel. “The goats are only in the trees for three to four hours at a time,” he says. “Imagine if I kept them inside the house”—they’d be imprisoned and would go hungry. “Where would the money come from to feed them? There is nothing else to do. There are no jobs.

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.

That's hilarious 😂

is that how they live?

King_Milkfart

Goats: if we climbed once and it's fun, we'll do it again.☺️

instinct

Poor goats. These horrible Moroccan farmers need to stop with this animal cruelty

I wish I had goats in my trees. 🐐

Quite interesting

Argan oil dispensers!! 🙂

It takes 25 years for the goats to ripen.

Soon algerians will claim this as theirs lmfao

إنه جديد

Why do you want my email address to read.

King_Milkfart

Could be true, Its a way to protect themselves from the predator, Actually, Ah, goats can even climb a mountain top, Somenof them went to the steep of the mountain to gather a salt

this is a misleading article. Quite speculative and CabreraHoltz statements lack scientific rigueur. It is rather based on what people said and therefore biased to be referenced in such a trusted platform as the ‘real story’

why not both you just love to ruin the fun,don't you 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 the goats were always climbing Argan trees in Morocco 🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦🇲🇦

What's the fake story? I need that one first.

May you have all of the confidence of a tree climbing goat as you pursue your passion today. TuesdayMotivaton

There is tail story Wolfman with goat teach how to fear life and up tree save goat life .. .

They're trying to get higher to beat the heat. Those are mountain goats man

Where wolfman with hand stick .. .

Courtesy of climate change

You know that argon oil you (maybe) put in your hair? It's 'processed' through these goats.

Knew goats climbed steep cliffs, but never knew they also climbed trees.🤔

When desperation is near people will end up doing the worst. I think is time to tackle climate change. If farmers would do what they are supposed to do this wouldn't have happened. Sad though I wouldn't want to go and see a goat stuck on a tree. Too far. I can see my son on it.

Save the goats!

Goat meat is the best specially like this type no cholesterol eat natural like argan and herbs like thyme and oregano and other healthy herbs all found in Morocco specially in the atlas 👍👍👍🇲🇦

help, please. where are Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira? missing in brazillian amazon .help, please

Seems like a bad omen.

Mon Dieu quel désespoir pourquoi ne pas abréger leurs souffrances,?

That “tourism” one worries me.

We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 537. in US

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

How AI Could Revolutionize Sports: Trainers Tap Algorithms to Boost Performance, Prevent InjuryCoaches and elite athletes are betting on new technologies that combine artificial intelligence with video to predict injuries before they happen and provide highly tailored workouts and practice drills that reduce the risk of getting hurt Creative Next Solutions We have experience at web design & development, branding, and ecommerce. ɪ ᴡᴀꜱ ꜰᴏʀᴛᴜɴᴀᴛᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍ ᴀᴄʀᴏꜱꜱ IMMarcosDA ᴡʜɪᴄʜ ɢᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴀ ɢʀᴇᴀᴛ ꜰɪɴᴀɴᴄɪᴀʟ ꜱᴜᴄᴄᴇꜱꜱ ɪ ᴘᴜᴛ ɪɴ $500 ᴀɴᴅ ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀ ᴀ ᴡᴇᴇᴋ ɪ ɢᴏᴛ $5380 ᴘʀᴏꜰɪᴛ. ʜɪꜱ ᴘʀᴇᴄɪꜱɪᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ᴛʀᴜꜱᴛᴡᴏʀᴛʜɪɴᴇꜱꜱ ᴄᴀɴ’ᴛ ʙᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇᴅ
Source: WSJ - 🏆 98. / 63 Read more »

Tri-State gas prices near $5 a gallonGas prices continue to climb across the nation with the average price now $4.87 a gallon. Great job Dictator Murphy GovMurphy Near? I live on Long Island and paid $5.00 my past 2 full ups.
Source: ABC7NY - 🏆 592. / 51 Read more »

The heat is on as high pressure builds over TexasThe average high temperature this time of the year at DFW is 90°. We are well above that the next 7 days and will flirt with record high temperatures.
Source: CBS DFW - 🏆 542. / 51 Read more »

6 Reasons why JavaScript is the GOAT | HackerNoonOften considered as a tool to build applications in your web browser, JavaScript can also be used as a general-purpose scripting language. Discover why
Source: hackernoon - 🏆 532. / 51 Read more »