Stretching along the Tunceli-Erzincan Road in a deep mountainous valley in eastern Turkey, the Kutu Stream is hosting its last visitors for the year. The colder the weather gets, the deeper the silence in the picturesque valley. The clientele of the restaurants along the stream is also dwindling, but the wild nature of the region remains spectacular. Two small groups of tourists found themselves the lucky audience of a unique spectacle on a rainy day in late September as they waited for their meal, the region’s famous trout, in a roadside restaurant.

“Have you seen our goats?” the waiter asked as he took the orders, pointing to the rugged cliffs outside the window. Tiny motions suddenly became recognizable in what had seemed a still landscape a moment ago. Camouflaged by fur almost identical to the ground, about a dozen animals were grazing on the rocks. They were no ordinary goats, the waiter was quick to point out before anyone mistook them for just any herd. “They are mountain goats special to Dersim,” he said, using Tunceli’s older name.

The fascinated tourists rushed for their cameras and mobile phones to capture the sight, as the wild goats, which rarely come close to inhabited areas, grazed on the yellowed grass, serene and unperturbed in the safety of the Kutu Stream that separated them from the human world. The alpha buck was immediately recognizable. Bulkier than the others, he boasted a beard and menacing horns, about half a meter long, circling the others. The waiter then pointed to a higher spot, where another group climbed almost vertical cliffs with an ease that would put any Everest conqueror to shame.

The various types of wild goats of eastern Turkey are protected and off limits to hunters, though they are not under threat of extinction. In 2011, the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs conducted research on their populations, but refused to release the numbers, wary of stoking the zeal of poachers.