60 Seconds on Earth: Saving the world’s coolest goat
A male Markhor in the Tooshi Game Reserve, Chitral, Pakistan
Editor's note: 60 Seconds on Earth is a regular GlobalPost series where our correspondents in the field produce video snapshots of the places and people that we find important, impressive, crazy or just unmistakably cool. Here's a recent installment on baseball for the blind.
CHITRAL, Pakistan — The population of these wild goats with their dramatic, twisting horns dwindled to just a few hundred in the 1980s. But in the remote mountains of northern Pakistan, a host of conservation measures are helping bring back the markhor, the country's national animal. The conservation success story has been attributed to community involvement, and the financial benefits of occasional — strictly regulated and very expensive — trophy hunts. In Chitral Gol national park, the goats also owe their resurgence to rangers who spend their days making sure that snow leopards, not poachers, are the only ones hunting the markhor.
The story you just read is accessible and free to all because thousands of listeners and readers contribute to our nonprofit newsroom. We go deep to bring you the human-centered international reporting that you know you can trust. To do this work and to do it well, we rely on the support of our listeners. If you appreciated our coverage this year, if there was a story that made you pause or a song that moved you, would you consider making a gift to sustain our work through 2024 and beyond?