Monthly Photos　May 2023

Photos taken by ILCAA staff and associates are posted here once a month; most of them are taken during their field research in Asia and Africa.

(The copyright belongs to the photographers.)

Goats traveling in the valley today, tomorrow, and in the future

The Hajar Mountains are a steep mountain range running in northern Oman in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula. In valleys among the mountains, goats are animals commonly encountered. They are domesticated and grazed by local people and come and go freely between the valley bottom and the high plateau in flocks every day. It seems that any topographic characteristics are never obstacles to these animals with four legs as far as I’ve seen them easily get to the elevated and precipitated places that we humans can hardly reach. I always marvel at their considerable physical ability when I see them eating thorny acacias on the way, going forward on the rock surface with footsteps, and obtaining very small footholds to climb a sheer cliff.

January 4, 2020
Northern Oman, Southeast Arabia
Photograph by Taichi KURONUMA