Tajikistan Brings Endangered Wild Goat From the Edge of Extinction to the Peak of Hope — newswatch.nationalgeographic.com

The markhor is an endangered wild goat occurring in southern Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and India. It is categorized as endangered on the IUCN Red List and listed under Appendix I of CITES. But in Tajikistan, people have come together to protect this wild goat with towering horns to the benefit of the one who rules them all—the snow leopard. Traveling through much of markhor habitat in Tajikistan is like traveling back in time in the fantasy world of J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. “You have come to the very edge of the Wild, as some of you may know. Hidden somewhere ahead of us is the fair valley of Rivendell,” writes Tolkien, and this is the association I have each time I arrive on a small terrace nestled among towering cliffs and waterfalls looking over the Panj river and into Afghanistan.

Read More