Two pygmy goats strolled onto a TriMet bus during the morning commute this week, waited patiently alongside human riders, and then wandered off toward a Northeast Portland shopping center before anyone could figure out where they came from. Surveillance video captured the animals boarding the bus at a stop, prompting a bus operator to spot them, a woman on board to try shooing them away, and passengers to eventually help usher them back onto the pavement.
The goats boarded an FX2-Division bus, an articulated green vehicle running TriMet's rapid transit line between downtown Portland and Gresham, according to KING 5. Security footage showed the two white pygmy goats waiting as commuters boarded before calmly following them aboard, at which point the bus operator reopened the doors and passengers helped nudge them back outside. The goats disembarked without resistance and watched the bus pull away, per the same footage.
As Gulf Coast News and Weather reported, the incident happened during the morning commute, and it remains unclear who the goats belonged to. The animals disappeared from TriMet's cameras and later wandered toward a shopping center near the northeast corner of the intersection, prompting people to call 911. TriMet posted about the encounter but has said it does not know whether the goats were ever located.
Police Search Comes Up Empty
After dispatchers received 911 calls about the loose goats near the Northeast Portland shopping center, Portland Police officers checked the area but could not locate the animals, TriMet confirmed to KING 5. No additional 911 calls about loose goats came in later that day. Oregon Live also reported on the incident, though the goats' ultimate fate and ownership remain open questions.
Why Backyard Goats Are Common in Portland
The mystery duo's brief bus ride taps into a broader Portland tradition of urban goat-keeping. Under Portland City Code Title 13, residents can legally keep up to three miniature goats on any residential lot without a permit, or up to five on lots of 10,000 square feet or larger, as long as each goat weighs 100 pounds or less, according to the City of Portland. That relatively permissive rule helps explain why pygmy goats are a fairly ordinary sight in local backyards.
Multnomah County Animal Services also runs a Livestock Registration Program specifically so animal control officers can quickly return stray livestock to owners rather than impounding them. It's unclear whether these particular goats were registered, but the program underscores how routine loose-livestock calls can be in the Portland metro area.
Portland's fondness for urban goats has deep roots, anchored by the Belmont Goats, a nonprofit herd that started on a vacant lot in inner Southeast Portland in October 2012 and became a beloved city fixture, according to OPB. That herd has been relocated several times over the years because of city development projects, but it cemented goats as something of a local mascot.
Not Portland's First Wild Goat Encounter
This week's transit detour is far from the city's strangest goat story. In March 2020, an escaped brown goat named Prince entered a Parkrose group home and head-butted residents, barricading them in a room until Portland Police officers arrived to restrain and remove the animal, per Willamette Week. Officers that day transported the goat to a nearby farm until its owners retrieved it.
TriMet's rules for riding strictly prohibit non-service pets from boarding buses and trains unless they're inside an enclosed pet carrier, a policy the transit agency enforces with penalties up to a $250 fine or exclusion from the system. The FX2-Division line where the goats boarded launched in September 2022 as TriMet's first Frequent Express bus route and was carrying roughly 8,100 daily passengers as of spring 2024, replacing the former Line 2 to offer faster, higher-capacity service along Division Street.
Beyond the novelty, goats like these two have practical uses in urban and suburban settings. Prescribed livestock grazing can reduce understory fuel loads by 71% to 83% in sensitive environments where chemical or mechanical clearing isn't an option, according to USDA guidelines cited in a prior Hoodline report on municipal goat grazing. Whether these particular goats were part of a grazing operation or simply someone's backyard pets that slipped their fence remains unknown, along with how they escaped and where they ultimately went.
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