PORT ANGELES, Wash. — State and federal officials are completing the final stage of mountain goat relocation from the Olympics to the North Cascades before the project moves into lethal removal this fall.
The fourth and final two-week round of helicopter removals began July 27 and is expected to wrap up this week.
A crew pursues the mountain goats in a helicopter, tranquilizing the animals and slinging them beneath the aircraft for the short but surreal ride back to a staging area near Hurricane Ridge, in Olympic National Park. There, teams examine them before they’re driven to release sites in the North Cascades.
The National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, and local tribes are partnering to remove the goats from the Olympic Peninsula after humans introduced them to the area in the 1920s. The invasive goats flourished in years since.
In 2018, 725 were estimated to live there.
"It's important from the national park perspective because the goats weren't native to that range,” said Brock Hoenes, of the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. “And they were starting to document ecosystem effects from the goats."
They also came into conflict with people at times. The goats crave salt, which occurs naturally in their native Cascades, but not the Olympic range. That led them to look for it in other places, like hikers’ sweat and urine.
In 2010, a man was gored and killed by a goat in Olympic National Park.
The Park Service said before this latest operation, 275 goats had been relocated, 16 went to zoos, and 35 died in transit, were killed or euthanized. As of Monday, they had removed 41 goats on top of that.
Officials also hope it will expand and strengthen existing goat populations in the Cascades.
It really is the ‘last call’ for the animals remaining in the area. After the helicopter operations wrap up, lethal removal begins in the fall.
Patti Happe, wildlife branch chief for Olympic National Park, said they’ve had to reduce their operations this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, limiting the number of people at the field site, and reducing the processing areas from two to one.
She notes that will likely mean the capture and transport of fewer goats, but also said they always expected this to be a smaller capture year. That’s because after years of interaction with the helicopter now, the goats have wised up to the plan.
“They’re so much harder to catch, because there are less of them and they’ve been flown over before and know what’s up,” said Happe. “They’re just really wily.”
That's the reason the project is moving into the lethal phase. As the goats get more difficult and more dangerous to catch, relocation becomes impossible.
Happe said the park service has interviewed and selected the skilled hunter volunteers that will begin culling the goats in September. Their ground operations will be focused in the national park this year. She expects ground removal operations in the surrounding national forest next year.
These groups will head into the backcountry with a goal of killing and removing as many goats as possible. These volunteers will also collect biologic samples, and horns will be submitted to Happe for study before any can be kept.
The goal is for the Olympic Mountains to be goat free by the fall of 2022.
"I hope the park sees an improvement in their ecosystem health,” said Hoenes. “That's the overall objective there. And it's also to ensure the preservation of the ecosystem in the future."