A mountain goat put down near 7 Mile Haines Highway last week had symptoms of contagious ecthyma, a disease caused by a parapox virus that came from domestic sheep, according to the Department of Fish and Game.
The female goat, three to four years old, was near death from starvation because the scabby pox lesions involving her lips, nose and eyelids likely made it hard for her to find food or browse. She also had a severe case of lungworm.
Further tests will be needed to confirm the virus, but her case was typical, said state wildlife biologist Anthony Crupi.
Contagious ecthyma has been reported sporadically in mountain goats in Alaska since 1968. The infection starts as blisters and then progresses to crusty, scabby proliferations. The sores are seen around the lips, eyelids, nose, udder, coronary band of the hoof and the urethral opening.
Since 2001, this is the 10th case in a mountain goat in Southeast Alaska, Crupi said.