The Spanish goat, also called the brush goat or scrub goat, came originally from Spain via Mexico to the United States. It is now a meat and brush-clearing type found widely in the United States. In the Southeast and elsewhere, they are often referred to as "wood" (Florida), "brush" or "briar" (North Carolina, South Carolina), "hill" (Virginia), and "scrub" (midwest Pennsylvania) goats. Until recently, these goats were kept mainly for clearing brush and other undesirable plant species from pasture lands. The boer goat had overtaken Spanish goats for meat by the 1980s.