The browser of the forest edge. A goat that eats everything. The feral goat is a medium-sized, agile animal, with a shaggy coat, a short tail and, in males, a beard. The colour varies, including black, white, brown or spotted, but all feral goats share the same habit: eating. They eat leaves, shoots, bark, ferns and anything else they can reach. They are also excellent climbers, scaling steep cliffs and rocky outcrops to find food. A goat that is a eating machine. These animals are the plant wreckers of the high country. They browse native trees and shrubs, preventing regeneration and slowly killing the forest. In the alpine zone, they eat tussocks and alpine plants, damaging fragile habitats that take decades to recover. They also compete with native herbivores for food. A single goat can strip a small tree of its leaves in minutes. A herd can denude a hillside in a season. Feral goats arrived with European settlers, who brought them as a food source. Some escaped, some were released, and they spread through the country. Now, they are found from the coast to the high country. To see a feral goat is to see the browser. The nimble, bearded, hungry animal that eats the forest, one leaf at a time. The goat's impact on offshore islands has been particularly severe. On islands without natural predators, goats can strip the vegetation completely, leaving behind bare rock and eroded soil. The native birds that depended on that vegetation disappear. The lizards that hid in the leaf litter vanish. The island becomes a desert. The high country is green. The goat grazes on a hillside, shaggy and bearded, stripping leaves from a young tree. The tree will not recover. The goat moves on. It does not know it is a plant wrecker. It does not know it is winning. It just wants to eat. Conservationists have worked for decades to remove goats from islands. On the mainland, the battle continues. The goats are still there, still browsing, still eating the forest. They are a pest, and they are winning.