Herd instinct kicks-in not only in humans but in tipsy animals also

There is a routinely quoted but rather unfair cliche that likens badly-behaved humans to animals. The reverse is also occasionally true, though it is not clear whether animals have such cliches in their languages to describe such excesses. The incident of a herd of goats getting tipsy and passing out by the roadside in Gujarat last week surely ranks as one example of the latter, right down to the drunkards’ apparent inability to handle their drinks. Any headbutting of those who tried to herd them to rehab facilities would also fall into the same category of behaviour. That they could not resist the lure of an unexpected cache of alcohol — in this case, the remnants of a shoddy destruction spree by the Gujarat Police of impounded hooch that left grazing pastures soaked in the heady stuff — also bespeaks their adoption of the peculiarly human quality of readily succumbing to spirited entreaties.

The law enforcers’ action of wetting an officially dry state and corrupting tee-totaller bovines in the process of trying to stamp out contraband alcohol was probably not premeditated. But, hopefully, the episode did not go unnoticed by the scientific community either, which has hitherto exhibited great academic interest in even inadvertently drunken fauna — ranging from birds, honeybees and rats to spiders, deer and bears.