Kaleb Baird poses with the Rocky Mountain billy goat he shot with his bow and arrow in September on the Cleveland Peninsula.
A nanny nurses her kid on the upper end of Ernest Sound. Kaleb Baird said he saw close to 30 mountain goats during the course of his hunt.
PETERSBURG – After an anxious three months, the rocky mountain goat Kaleb Baird shot with a bow and arrow on the Cleveland Peninsula has been certified by Pope and Young, a conservation club, as the largest billy ever taken down with a bow in the world.
"It was a killer animal and a great goat," said Baird of Petersburg. "It's neat that he gets to be recognized as number one."
The mountain goat had a final score of 53 1/2 inches, according to Pope and Young. Baird said an official scorer took ten different measurements of the animal's horns and added them up. A Pope and Young panel reviewed the measures and also made the final score.
Baird's goat beat the previous world record holder by 1/4 of an inch, which was set just 10 months ago, according to Pope and Young.
Earlier this year, Baird was one of two hunters who were awarded a rocky mountain goat tag by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to be able to hunt a secluded herd on the Cleveland Peninsula. The hunt had been closed for 16 years, so when Baird made the journey to the peninsula in September, he knew he had the chance to take down a record breaking billy.
He shot the approximately 300 pound, 8-year-old goat from 30 yards away. The animal then proceeded to fall 700 feet down an avalanche chute. The tip of the billy's right horn chipped off during the fall.
That chipped horn lowered the final score, because about an inch of the horn was missing and deductions were made due to the lack of symmetry between the horns. Baird said the final score would have been about an inch and a half bigger if the right horn hadn't been chipped.
"It's pretty incredible that he still took number one," said Baird. "For a mountain goat, he had a lot of deductions compared to most."
In April, Baird, along with some friends and family, will be attending the Pope and Young's Biennial Awards Convention and 60th Anniversary Banquet in Reno, Nevada. Baird's mountain goat will be mounted on display during the week-long convention, and he'll be recognized for his world record breaking kill.
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