Chamois

Name and taxonomy

The scientific name is Rupicapra rupicapra, which joins the Latin words for rock and goat. The English name comes from French and is said as either sham-wah or shammy. The species belongs to the cattle family, Bovidae, in the order Artiodactyla. It is often called the Alpine chamois to set it apart from the Pyrenean chamois, a separate species in the same genus. Seven subspecies are recognised, including the Balkan, Carpathian, Anatolian and Caucasian forms. German speakers call it the Gams or Gämse, and Italians the camoscio.

Evolution and relatives

The chamois is a goat-antelope, a member of the bovid subfamily that holds goats, sheep, ibex and the musk ox. Its closest relative is the Pyrenean chamois of Spain, the Pyrenees and the Apennines. Like other goat-antelopes it probably evolved its gripping hooves and short horns as a climber of cliffs. The mountain ranges of southern Europe split its populations, which is thought to explain the many subspecies. The Balkan, Carpathian, Anatolian and Caucasian forms each hold one block of mountains. The Tatra form of Poland and Slovakia is among the rarest, and its numbers have fallen sharply.

Appearance

The chamois is a very small bovid. Wikipedia gives a shoulder height of 70 to 80 centimetres and a body length of 107 to 137 cm. Animal Diversity Web gives a similar 110 to 135 cm. A male weighs 30 to 60 kilograms and a female 25 to 45, so the sexes differ only slightly. Chamois in New Zealand weigh about 20% less than European animals of the same age, which suggests poorer food.

Both sexes grow short, nearly straight horns that rise from the head and hook back at the tip. A male's horns are thicker, but a female's can be longer. The summer coat is chestnut brown, and in winter long dark guard hairs grow over the underfur and the colour fades to light grey. A black stripe runs along the spine, the underparts are pale, and the rump is white.

The face is white with a dark band that runs from the muzzle through the eye to the ear. The hooves grip wet and slippery rock. The long winter hair on the neck and back of the male is the source of the gamsbart plume.

Habitat and range

Its native ranges include the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Cantabrian Mountains, the Apennines and the Dinarides. Its range runs on through the Tatra and Carpathian Mountains, the Balkan Mountains, the Rila-Rhodope massif and the Pindus. In Asia it lives in the mountains of northeastern Turkey and the Caucasus. GBIF holds records from 35 countries, a count that includes zoos and stray sightings.

It favours steep, rugged, rocky ground at moderate to high elevations, up to at least 3,600 metres. In summer it grazes Alpine meadows above the tree line. In winter it drops to about 800 metres and shelters in pine forest and on steep slopes where snow does not settle. It uses both steep and fairly flat terrain.

New Zealand received its first chamois in 1907 as a gift from Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Two bucks and six does landed at Wellington on 23 January 1907 aboard the SS Turakina. They travelled on by ship, rail and packhorse to Mount Cook, and their descendants spread across much of the South Island.

Diet and feeding

The chamois is a herbivore. In summer it eats highland grasses, herbs and flowers. In winter it turns to lichens, mosses, bark, conifer needles and young pine shoots. When deep snow buries all food it can fast for two weeks and survive.

It feeds mostly in the morning and evening, rests around midday, and may graze on moonlit nights. Like other bovids it chews the cud, which lets it live on coarse winter browse. Its grazing shapes the plant community of the Alpine meadows. In New Zealand that same grazing harms native Alpine plants, which never lived with a hoofed browser before 1907. New Zealand animals weigh about 20% less than European ones, so food there is probably scarcer.

Behaviour and social life

Females and their young are sociable, and a herd can number 15 to 30 animals. Adult males live alone for most of the year and join the herds in late summer. Most females stay in the range where they were born, while males disperse more widely. When a mother dies, another female in the herd may take on her kid.

During the rut the males fight hard for unmated females. Dominant males drive young males out of the maternal herds and sometimes kill them. A young male then wanders until it can hold ground of its own at 8 to 9 years old.

The chamois is active by day. When alarmed it flees to the most inaccessible rock it can reach, often with huge leaps. It can jump almost 2 metres high and at least 6 metres long, and it runs at 50 km/h over uneven ground. It watches for danger from below, so a hunter who stalks from above is less likely to be seen.

Communication and senses

A chamois warns the herd of danger with a sharp whistle and by stamping a foot. The other animals then run for the cliffs. Its eyes scan the slopes below, which is where most threats come from. Like other goat-antelopes it probably has a good sense of smell, and a rutting male is thought to use scent to find females.

Rutting males settle rank by fighting, and the winner keeps the females. A dominant male also uses force to push young males out of the herd. A newborn kid learns to leap within days, and it probably follows its mother's movements as its first signal.

Reproduction and life cycle

The rut runs from the end of October to December in Europe, with its peak in late November and early December. In New Zealand, where the seasons are reversed, the rut falls in May. Breeding is probably polygynous, with a dominant male mating with several females. Gestation lasts 170 days, and the kids arrive in May or early June on a bed of grass and lichen.

A female usually bears one kid, and twins are rare. A newborn weighs 2 to 3 kilograms and can follow its mother almost at once. Within a few days it leaps well. Animal Diversity Web puts weaning at 2 to 3 months, while Wikipedia says six months. A kid is full grown at one year.

Females mature at about 2.5 years and males at 3.5 to 4, though some females mate at two. A young male remains in its mother's herd until the age of 2 to 3 years. Chamois live 14 to 22 years, and the recorded wild average is 15 to 17. One captive animal reached 22 years.

Predators and threats

The Eurasian lynx and the grey wolf are the main natural predators. In the past the Persian leopard and the golden jackal also hunted chamois, and brown bears and golden eagles may take some. People are now the main predator. Avalanches and epidemics also kill many.

Local populations in the Caucasus, the Tatra and the Chartreuse massif of France have fallen through overhunting, habitat loss and competition with livestock. Harassment by people and dogs adds to the pressure in those places. Chamois also compete with domestic sheep for summer grazing.

Population and conservation

The IUCN lists the chamois as Least Concern. The European population is about 400,000 and is generally rising. The species has been introduced and reintroduced to many parts of Europe. Some subspecies are strictly protected in the European Union under the Habitats Directive. The Tatra, Caucasus and Chartreuse populations are the exceptions, and each has shrunk under hunting and disturbance. Elsewhere the trend is upward, helped by reintroductions and regulated hunting seasons.

In New Zealand the chamois is an introduced pest. Hunting there is unrestricted, and the Department of Conservation encourages it to protect native Alpine plants.

Relationship with humans

The chamois is a popular game animal, and its meat is a prized food. Hunters use two habits against it: it feeds at dawn and dusk, and it looks for danger from below. Hunting tourism brings money to mountain regions. A hunter who climbs above a feeding herd in the early morning has the best chance of a shot.

Chamois leather, made from the hide, is smooth and absorbent and polishes glass and cars without scratching. Most modern shammy leather comes from deer, goat or sheep hide instead. A napped cotton or synthetic cloth also goes by the name chamois.

The gamsbart, a plume of winter hair from a male's neck and back, decorates hats across the Alpine countries. The chamois does not attack people, and its only harm is competition with sheep for grazing. Where sheep and chamois share summer pasture, the sheep take grass the wild herds need. Dogs that roam the slopes disturb the herds and add to the losses in the hardest-hit regions.

In culture and myth

Slovenian legend tells of Zlatorog, the Goldhorn, a white chamois buck whose golden horns shine on Mount Triglav. In the version Karl Deschmann recorded in 1868, a young hunter from the Trenta valley loses his girl to a rich Venetian merchant. He hunts Goldhorn for its treasure and wounds it. A magic Triglav flower grows where its blood falls, the animal eats it, heals and charges. The hunter, dazzled by the golden horns, falls to his death, and the Soča river carries him away.

In 1877 Rudolf Baumbach retold the story in verse, and later it became an opera. In the Kingdom of the Goldhorn, from 1931, was the first full-length film in the Slovene language. The Laško brewery sells a Zlatorog beer, and people in Austrian Carinthia and Friuli tell the same story.

In Austria and Bavaria the gamsbart on a hat began as a hunting trophy. It now belongs to traditional Tracht costume, and a large plume signals the wearer's pride and standing. Makers pick hairs with a dark root and a light tip and fix them in a metal or horn mount.