Pyrenean Chamois

The Pyrenean chamois, Rupicapra pyrenaica, is a goat-antelope that lives in the Pyrenees and Cantabrian Mountains of Spain, France and Andorra, and in the Apennine Mountains of central Italy. It is one of the two species of the genus Rupicapra, the other being the chamois. It is up to 80 centimetres tall, with a ruddy brown summer coat and a black or brown winter coat with darker patches around the eyes, and both sexes have backward-hooked horns up to 20 centimetres long. It browses on grass, lichens and tree buds and is sure-footed and agile, found at any elevation up to 3,000 metres. Like other chamois it was hunted almost to extinction, especially in the 1940s, for chamois leather. The population has since recovered and in 2022 was estimated at about 50,000 mature individuals.