Utah ‘goat man’ identified as hunter

SALT LAKE CITY - A man spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats in northern Utah has been identified as a hunter preparing for a Canadian archery season.

After a hiker spotted the "goat man" on July 15 in the mountains above Ogden , wildlife officials said they wanted to be certain the person was aware of the dangers as hunting season approaches.

They speculated he might have been an extreme wildlife enthusiast who wanted to get as close as possible to the goats. But Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said he received a call Monday from a 57-year-old Southern California hunter who explained he was trying out his goat suit for a mountain goat hunt in Canada next year.

"In talking to him, I felt he was very knowledgeable, a very experienced hunter," Douglass said Tuesday. "He's hunted internationally. My concern all along was that this person needed to understand the risks, and certainly after talking to him, I felt he was doing the best he could to understand and mitigate those risks. ... He was simply preparing for a hunt."

Coty Creighton, 33, spotted the goat man July 15 during a hike. He noticed something odd about one goat that was trailing behind the rest.

"I thought maybe it was injured," Creighton said last week. "It just looked odd."