Hunting is permitted only as part of strictly regulated tourist programs, and only a small number of aging animals qualify as game. Tunceli province has long been an area of intense clashes between the security forces and militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party , another factor that discourages hunters. No hunting expedition has been organized in the region for some time, but the wild goats are still targeted by poachers who risk fines of 12,000 Turkish liras ($3,930).

The various types of wild goats of eastern Turkey are protected and off limits to hunters, though they are not under threat of extinction. In 2011, the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs conducted research on their populations, but refused to release the numbers, wary of stoking the zeal of poachers .

The fascinated tourists rushed for their cameras and mobile phones to capture the sight, as the wild goats , which rarely come close to inhabited areas, grazed on the yellowed grass, serene and unperturbed in the safety of the Kutu Stream that separated them from the human world. The alpha buck was immediately recognizable. Bulkier than the others, he boasted a beard and menacing horns, about half a meter long, circling the others. The waiter then pointed to a higher spot, where another group climbed almost vertical cliffs with an ease that would put any Everest conqueror to shame.

“Have you seen our goats?” the waiter asked as he took the orders, pointing to the rugged cliffs outside the window. Tiny motions suddenly became recognizable in what had seemed a still landscape a moment ago. Camouflaged by fur almost identical to the ground, about a dozen animals were grazing on the rocks. They were no ordinary goats, the waiter was quick to point out before anyone mistook them for just any herd. “They are mountain goats special to Dersim,” he said, using Tunceli’s older name.

Stretching along the Tunceli-Erzincan Road in a deep mountainous valley in eastern Turkey, the Kutu Stream is hosting its last visitors for the year. The colder the weather gets, the deeper the silence in the picturesque valley. The clientele of the restaurants along the stream is also dwindling, but the wild nature of the region remains spectacular. Two small groups of tourists found themselves the lucky audience of a unique spectacle on a rainy day in late September as they waited for their meal, the region’s famous trout, in a roadside restaurant.

Ali Haydar Gursonmez, the head of Tunceli’s Nature Conservation and National Parks Department, told Al-Monitor that special teams stand watch around the clock against illegal hunting. “The protection work is especially busy around this time of year. The teams are constantly on alert. We are trying to make use of technology as much as possible,” he said, adding that drones could be employed in the future.

Tunceli’s wild goats enjoy another unusual layer of extra protection. In the Alevi faith of the mainly Kurdish local population, wild goats are considered sacred, and hunting them has been forbidden by centuries-old unwritten rules. The penalty for transgressors is likewise not formalized, but arguably heavier than the government’s fines.

Traditional Alevi communities are tightly knit with their own distinct codes of morality and justice. Violators of those norms face social banishment until they repent and win the forgiveness of the “dede,” the Alevi religious and communal leader. Killing a wild goat is considered so serious that it is punishable with banishment from the “cem,” the religious gathering that lies at the core of the Alevi faith and often doubles as a social assembly in smaller, more traditional communities.

Why are the wild goats sacred? Al-Monitor posed the question to Ali Ekber Frik, an Alevi dede in Tunceli. Frik described their belief that Alevi saints are the invisible shepherds and protectors of wild goats, which explains why “they move and graze together as if herded by someone despite not having an owner.” And “because the saints gather around them, our people recognize them as sacred,” Frik said. “The goats were called the Dervish Cemal’s animals or Sheikh Ahmet Dede’s animals so that they can live freely, without anyone touching or killing them. They are creatures who do no harm to anyone,” he added.

Killing a mountain goat is considered a sin, Frik said, stressing that the transgressor would be proclaimed a “duskun,” which means “fallen” or “failed” — a central concept in Alevism. A duskun is someone who has deviated from the path of righteousness and become unacceptable to the community. “Those people would not be accepted to the cem,” the dede explained. “The dede would not have them around and let them kiss his hand until they repent their sin. They must be punished until they promise not to do it again. They would be cast out and banished from the community. They would be chided for the killing. ‘Why did you kill it? Why did you have to do it when you have your own herd to slaughter and eat?’ they would be told. Those are the animals of the saints.”

Campaigns are occasionally organized for a wholesale ban on hunting the region's mountain goats. Earlier this year, the issue was taken to parliament after the authorities announced that seven goats would be available in a hunting program for tourists in the Tunceli mountains this year. In a written question to Forestry Minister Alican Onlu, a Tunceli deputy for the Kurdish-dominated Peoples’ Democratic Party, said the hunting program constituted “an affront to the faith of the Dersim people” and questioned the ministry’s commitment to wildlife conservation. In response, the minister insisted that hunting quotas are carefully determined without upsetting the herds' natural balance, while dodging the religious aspect of Onlu’s questions.