India, Oct. 17 -- Sometimes a gift comes with a very long tail. In 1904, a British duke sent six Himalayan tahr to New Zealand so people could hunt them. A long-term study published in the journal Biological Invasions in 2017 tracked what those animals did to the mountains. Its authors, Jennyffer Cruz and colleagues, examined plots that were monitored for more than two decades. Here is what they found.

The Duke of Bedford gave six tahr to the New Zealand government in 1904. The Department of Conservation (DOC) says tahr are goat-like animals from the central Himalayan ranges of India and Nepal. They were brought in as a hunting resource, according to the study. Historical sources state that only five of the six animals made it through th...