A rare majestic goat called the markhor has made a comeback after a ceasefire agreed between the Indian and Pakistani armies in Nov. 2003.

The animal either fell victim to or was scared away by regular artillery and machinegun fire across its high-altitude habitat and had not been seen for years.

“It is absolutely fantastic that they are there,” said Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, an environmental group that took part in a recent survey.

The markhor (Capra falconeri) is the world’s largest species of goat and is recognised by its trademark spiralling horns that can grow more than a metre long -- which also makes the animal prized for traditional Asian medicine.

Wildlife authorities in Kashmir said the goat had not been sighted since the mid-1990s because of rising tension on the Kashmir frontier.

But a three-month survey earlier this year by wildlife experts sighted 115 markhors in 35 herds, they said.

“Shelling was a serious threat. Peace on the borders has really helped the markhors,” Indian Kashmir’s chief wildlife warden, C.M. Seth, told Reuters.

The sightings have raised hopes that the markhor is no longer as close to extinction in Kashmir as earlier thought.

“The size of the population sighted is sufficient for the species’ recovery,” Seth said.

Experts said there were an estimated 250-300 markhors in Indian Kashmir in 1977.

The goat, which has a shaggy winter coat ranging from light brown to black, lives in semi-arid cliffside mountain areas of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

It has been hunted for its horns, hoofs and meat, depleting its numbers. In the 1970s, it was estimated there were between 20,000-25,000 markhors worldwide. By 1997, the Worldwide Fund for Nature put their number at just a few thousand.

It is listed as endangered by the World Conservation Union.

Although the new sightings were good news, conservationists said they were worried the markhor’s habitat had been divided by an electrified fence built by India to stop incursions of Islamic militants into Indian Kashmir.

“The fencing on the border to control infiltration of militants has created permanent barriers for the wild animals also,” said the markhor survey report.