POLICE were forced to deploy riot shields after a runaway goat went on the rampage through a quiet village, chasing a woman and trying to eat her Christmas decorations.
The drama unfolded in Upper Seagry, near Chippenham, Wiltshire, where the animal was seen running loose after attempting to munch oranges from a festive wreath.
Officers from Wiltshire Police were called in and used riot shields and a lasso to capture the buck before safely returning him to his owner.
While waiting with police on Thursday, the goat continued causing chaos and even tried to eat safety equipment from the back of an officer’s car.
The animal also briefly slipped free from the lasso before being recaptured moments later.
“Apparently it’s not very nice,” one of the officers could be heard saying on body-worn camera footage.
“We’ve got it on a tow line, we’ve got some riot shields because he’s trying to butt my head,” she continued.
A Wiltshire Police spokesperson said: “PC Ferris and PC Miller, from Chippenham Response, swiftly responded, controlled the situation and returned the goat to his owner.”
Research indicates that goats may be much more intelligent than many people assume.
In a study by experts at Aberystwyth University, sheep, alpacas, and goats were put through a series of tests to compare how effectively they process information.
The researchers examined whether the animals could grasp that an object continues to exist even when it can’t be seen—an ability that could help them keep track of other herd members or stay alert to predators.
For the experiment, the animals had to find items concealed beneath cups, earning food treats when they chose correctly.
The challenges were made progressively harder, such as moving the cups after the object was hidden, so the animals had to keep track of the object’s location in their minds.
Overall, goats achieved the strongest results, while sheep and alpacas found it increasingly difficult as the tasks became more demanding.
Lead author Megan Quail said: “This study is the first to directly compare the cognitive abilities of several domesticated livestock species.
“We found that goats demonstrated the greatest capacity to understand that objects still exist even if they are hidden – this could be linked to their need to be more selective in their eating habits.
“It may also be a sign of goats’ greater environmental awareness than sheep or alpacas.
“The ability to track other goats or predators may be a useful adaptation when navigating areas of dense vegetation whilst foraging.
“Equally, the ability to track and mentally reconstruct the position of stimuli within a foraging context may be a useful adaptation for greater feeding efficiency.”
In another experiment, goats again showed superior ability, beating both sheep and alpacas in a task designed to test spatial memory with food placed in different buckets.
Spatial memory refers to the skill of remembering where things are located and using that knowledge to move through an environment, for example, recalling where food was previously stored or found.
