"The sighting of a man dressed in a goat suit on a Utah mountain is causing concern among state wildlife officials," begins this report on the recent sighting of a man dressed in a goat suit on a Utah mountain. Why? Is wearing a goat suit illegal in Utah? No! It is not! So don't get all concerned, government!
The man in the goat suit, who is being referred to by at least one legal blogger as "Goat Man," was spotted on July 15 by Coty Creighton, a photographer out hiking near Ogden, Utah. (These pictures, of course, are his.) Creighton spotted what appeared to be (and as you already know, in fact was) a man in a goat suit "trailing behind a herd of goats on his hands and knees." According to Creighton, the man "froze" when he noticed someone watching him, either unsure what to do next or trying to look more like a goat. (Since the report says Goat Man then "sat on a hill for several minutes," and he sat like this (left), it was probably the former.) After a while, Goat Man "got back down on his hands and knees and hurried to catch up with the rest of the herd."
Again, all of this was perfectly legal. It is a third-degree felony in Utah to steal a goat suit, but only if the goat is still wearing it. It's also illegal to kill (or "wantonly destroy") a species of protected goat, but Goat Man was not seen to be harming any goats. And of course it's illegal (in Utah) to do what some of you degenerates are surely thinking Goat Man had in mind: Utah forbids doing that with "any live, nonhuman vertebrate creature." So, good news, I guess, in that invertebrates are fair game in the Beehive State (that would include bees).
But again, no evidence at all that Goat Man was doing anything other than observing these particular vertebrate creatures. Officials said he could be simply a "wildlife enthusiast," which again is not illegal depending on what they mean by that.
Government officials claimed, of course, that their concern was only for Goat Man's well-being and that they just want to talk to him about the potential dangers. "While officials said what the man is doing is not illegal," the report states, "they're concerned as the hunting season approaches that he could be mistaken for a goat, or attacked by a live goat," the latter being a concern because rams are highly territorial.
Especially because, you know what else is approaching? Goat mating season. I bet if you included that in the warning you'd have no further sightings of Goat Man at all, at least until spring.
