The goats that live on the island of Caprera, «from a phenotypic point of view are wary of the goat populations of Sardinia». This peculiarity found among the herds that live on the island of Garibaldi was affirmed, a few days ago, by Aldo Luigi Manunta, general director of the AARS - Association of Breeders of the Sardinia Region, during the conference entitled “The Park tells”, organized by the National Park of the Archipelago of La Maddalena.

«With the Agris Sardegna agency and the University of Milan we captured 9 subjects by taking blood samples to see, from a genetic point of view, where these goats are located, and from the first results, which are from a few days ago - which on my part were quite obvious - it turned out that this goat population is placed in an intermediate way between the Montecristo goat, which represents the wild goat and those that are present today in Italy and therefore raised in Sardinia but are also quite distant from the goat populations currently deposited in the genetic banks. This opens important questions on the origin of these goats».

In Sardinia, explained Aldo Luigi Manunta, we have two native breeds, the Sardinian goat and the primitive Sardinian goat. The differences are found first of all in height; those of Caprera reach up to 1.10 meters in height, the others 65 cm. The goats of Caprera also lose their hair during the summer compared to the others; they are very adult individuals including two specimens over 15 years old, an age higher than the regional and national averages. There is a difference regarding the udders and the tendency to live, the goats of Caprera, continued Manunta, in unisexual herds; you see groups of goats that live together, while in the other families there are mixed groups or there are goats that stay together with kids.

"Given the first genetic results, we will proceed with further captures, because the University of Milan as Agris research, sees in this population data that are very interesting; it is certainly a new Italian goat population; the genetic data will be compared with other world populations for which we have a genotype deposit and then we will see the results that will be obtained. Surely - concluded Manunta - genetic studies will give us further clarifications in the future with respect to this population that, at the moment, we can say, is unique, in the national panorama".