You could say nature is returning — in a way — to San Jose, Calif.
A herd of nearly 200 goats couldn’t be held back on Tuesday after they broke through their electric fence enclosure and took over the East San Jose streets, NBC News reports.
Twitter user Zach Roelands shared a video of the scene on social media. The video shows a mass of goats stampeding down a street, with people watching shocked on the sidelines and attempting to corral them.
“When I got back from the store all the goats had broken through the fence and were recking (sic) havoc on our street,” Roelands tweeted. “This is the craziest thing to happen all quarantine.”
At one point in the video, some of the goats even stop for a quick bite of grass along the way. A dog runs through the middle of the herd, clearly excited by the potential for new friends.
In a response to a comment in the thread, Roelands confirmed that no goats actually live on the street.
“They come by for three days a year to clear dead weeds off the hill behind our house,” he wrote.
Roelands’ father, Terry, confirmed to NBC Bay Area that the goats have been coming to the hill for the past 15 years after their home caught on fire.
He said one of the goats started to break the fence, and the others followed suit.
“All of a sudden they get onto our driveway and it was very exciting, but I was a little bit nervous because the garage was open and I thought they might get into the garage,” the Roelands’ neighbour, Amit Patel, told NBC Bay Area.
The goats’ fun was over in about five minutes when a rancher managed to funnel the animals back home, Roelands explained.
The momentary chaos has provided quite a few laughs for the Twitter world. To make matters sweeter, Roelands asked those who are able to do so to make a donation to Feeding America.
This isn’t the first time goats have gone rogue during the pandemic. In late March, a Welsh town was overtaken by rogue rams after residents were forced indoors due to coronavirus fears.
Locals posted several photos and videos online of roughly a dozen wild Kashmiri mountain goats wandering around downtown Llandudno, where they could be seen hopping on benches and capering around on the pavement over several days.
“They are curious, goats are,” town Coun. Carol Marubbi told the BBC. “I think they are wondering what’s going on like everybody else.”
— With files from Global News reporter Josh K. Elliott