“My days usually begin with a couple of hours driving and a couple of stiff cups of coffee,” said Chris Danilson, the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe’s wildlife biologist. “I put together a lightweight pack so I can move quickly. Then it’s beatin’ the feet up the trail, usually 2, 4, maybe 5,000 vertical feet in a day, in search of the goats. Then I get back down the mountain safely and hopefully, before dark.”
In the North Cascades, the native mountain goat population is in trouble. Scientists are conducting a research project to reverse the species’ 40-year population decline. Meanwhile, on the other side of Puget Sound in Olympic National Park, mountain goats are not native. There, the goat population is thriving, but threatened. The park’s preferred alternative, according to a draft environmental-impact statement, is to eradicate the goats by shooting them from helicopters. The public, however, is divided on the issue.

Disappearing from the North Cascades

“The mountain goat is vital to my heritage,” said James Joseph, the Sauk-Suiattle natural resources director. “When I introduce myself to another Indian, I give them my Indian name, Quil Ish Ka’ Nim. Then I tell them, ‘My clan is the Mountain Goat.’ ”

The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, located near Darrington, has great cultural, spiritual, social and economic ties to the mountain goat. Anthropological evidence dates the tribe’s relationship with the mountain goat back nearly 8,000 years, Joseph said.

“We’ve been here for generations,” Joseph said. “We used to go up into the hills to collect their wool to make sweaters, hats and socks. In September and October, we had expeditions to harvest goats for meat. We used their horns for tools and their hides for leather clothing. We used the wool to trade with other tribes.”

Unlike most Western Washington tribes, the Sauk-Suiattle are mountain people. The mountain goat symbolizes their connection with the North Cascades.

“Coastal tribes look to the killer whale for spiritual meaning because they spend most of their time by saltwater,” Joseph said. “Up here, we look to the mountain goat.”

For the past 30 years, the tribe has chosen not to hunt mountain goats or make clothing from their wool because of the ongoing population decline.

“Everyone knows mountain goats are out there, but they are not a bread-and-butter species for the department,” said Cliff Rice, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife research scientist. “They tend to be pushed to the side. Then, periodically, the department says we need to pay more attention to what’s going on.”

In 1960, an estimated 9,000 goats lived in the North Cascades. Only 3,000 to 4,000 remain.

“We don’t know what exactly caused the current decline of mountain goats in the North Cascades, but all of the possible causes … are interconnected,” Rice said. “The most prominent one is that hunting limits were set too high in the past, but that doesn’t explain the decline entirely. The decline also coincided with a lot of the timber-harvest activity.”

In the past, the hunting limit for mountain goats was the same as all other ungulates, or hooved animals, Rice said. Mountain goats, however, have lower reproductive rates than other ungulates, so they cannot rebound as quickly when their numbers decline.

Timber harvesting also potentially impacts the goats. During the winter, mountain goats move down into
forested habitats, adjacent to cliffs, Rice said. Less snow accumulates under the shelter of mature, closed-canopy forests. Because of this, more forage is accessible to the goats, compared to more open areas that are buried under snow. Forests of the young, open-canopy variety do not have enough food resources
for goats.

Logging roads also might contribute to the goat decline. A study in Montana by Douglas Chadwick, published in 1983, suggests that disturbances associated with roads may be great enough to cause mountain goats to permanently switch habitats. People who recreate in the mountains also might contribute to this disturbance because logging roads provide easier access to the goats’ alpine habitat in the summer.

A North Cascades mountain goat research project that includes several federal agencies, the Sauk-Suiattle Tribe and Western Washington University, is investigating the goat decline. The primary motivation behind the project is the variation of mountain goat numbers throughout the North Cascades.

Above: On Mount Adams and throughout the North Cascades, radio collars on mountain goats allow scientists to track goat movements throughout the year. Photo courtesy of Colin Shanley. Top: Mountain goat populations in the North Cascades have been decreasing for the past 40 years. Photo courtesy of Colin Shanley.

“In some areas like Darrington their numbers are much lower than in the past — like 50 years ago — and in other areas they may be lower, but the decline is much more debatable,” Rice said. “For example, in the Goat Rocks Wilderness and around Mount Baker, their numbers aren’t up to levels they were before, but they do seem to be coming back.”

Researchers dart goats using a tranquilizer gun. Then the
researchers give each immobilized goat a physical examination and a Global Positioning System radio collar. Every three hours, the radio collars record each goat’s location.



One project goal is to map the year-round habitat mountain goats use throughout the North Cascades. The other project goal is to increase the aerial survey accuracy of the goat population. Project leaders will make management recommendations to the state from the project’s results so that scientists can better manage the species in the future.

“It’s possible that we could suggest augmenting the goat population in places like the Darrington area in the future,” Rice said.

One way to augment the North Cascades goat population could be removing non-native mountain goats from Olympic National Park and putting them in the Cascades.

The non-native problem

“The (Olympic National) park exercises mind control over the public,” said Ron Judd, a Seattle Times columnist who has written several books about recreation and the Pacific Northwest. “They don’t want the public to associate mountain goats with the park. In fact, you now cannot buy anything from the park with a goat on it, not a postcard, nothing.”

Fifteen thousand years ago, the Cordilleran Ice Sheet separated the Olympic Peninsula from the rest of Washington state. The following period of isolation led to the creation of many localized species, found only on the peninsula. Today, the peninsula has 35 endemic plant and animal species, such as the Olympic marmot and Piper’s bellflower, a plant goats eat.

The ice sheet also barred many species found in the North Cascades from dispersing to the peninsula. Mammals historically found in the North Cascades but absent from the Olympics include the grizzly bear, wolverine, lynx, pika and mountain goat.

Above: Cliff Rice (left) and a veterinarian (right) immobilize a goat in order to attach a radio collar. They perform an ultrasound to check the goat’s health. Photo courtesy of Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

In the 1920s before the establishment of Olympic National Park, 12 mountain goats from Alaska and Canada were introduced for hunting purposes near Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula.
The goats thrived in their new alpine environment, quickly expanding south and east across the park at a rate of six kilometers per year. By 1983, the estimated goat population in the park soared to nearly 1,500.

Some park officials dislike mountain goats in Olympic National Park because the goats are not native to the park.

“Parks are for preserving pieces of the United States with naturally functioning ecosystems,” said Patti Happe, the Olympic National Park wildlife branch chief. “Mountain goats are not a part of this ecosystem, and they shouldn’t be.”

Some park scientists say the mountain goats’ presence threatens alpine environments in Olympic National Park, which contain many fragile plant species.

“With exotic species, the time when you want to control them is not when the population is huge and causing resource damage,” Happe said. “You want to get them before they spread because that’s when the population is small and you actually have the ability to control them.”

According to National Park Service policy, a control or eradication program can be justified if the species is non-native, the species threatens the park’s natural resources or public health and control of the species is prudent and feasible. Happe said the mountain goat meets these three criteria.

From 1981 to 1989, the park removed 407 goats while control of the species was prudent and feasible. Park personnel in helicopters used tranquilizer guns and net guns to immobilize the goats. Then personnel tied the goats up, put them in sacks and helicopters whisked them away.

Three hundred and sixty of the 407 goats were relocated to various regions across the Western United States, including an unspecified number to the North Cascades. Twenty-eight died during the capture process. Scientists killed 19 others for scientific purposes. The park discontinued the removal program after 1989 because of increasing cost.

In 1995, Olympic National Park officials wrote a draft environmental-impact statement.

“The preferred alternative from the draft EIS was to kill the remaining goat population by shooting them from helicopters,” said Barb Maynes, the Olympic National Park public information officer.

The park estimated the preferred alternative to be the cheapest and most efficient way to eradicate the park’s goat population. The 1995 estimated cost for this alternative was roughly $820,000. The figure would likely be more expensive today.

In 2000, the Conservation Biology Institute examined all the scientific data on mountain goats in the park. The review concluded mountain goats were never native to the Olympic Peninsula and that controlling mountain goats would be prudent and feasible. The report also concluded, however, that insufficient data exists to establish that mountain goats are negatively impacting the alpine vegetation more than other natural phenomena.

Some people support the park’s policy for the mountain goats, but others vehemently oppose it.
Judd questions the validity of evidence that blames goats for vegetation damage and said he believes goats should remain in the park.

Adam Wells, a graduate student at Western Washington University, performs radio telemetry on Ptarmigan Ridge near Mount Baker to track goats for his thesis paper. Photo courtesy of Colin Shanley.

“The early science for goat management in the park was a sham,” Judd said. “Their survey technique was fraudulent. They put out salt blocks to attract goats from 30 miles away to places like Hurricane Ridge. So then, of course, the goats created wallows near these salt blocks. Then the park took pictures of the wallows as proof of the (plant) damage the goats were causing. It’s a joke.”

Dave Werntz, the Northwest Ecosystem Alliance science director, said he supports Olympic National Park’s position on non-native mountain goats.

“Plants that are subject to herbivory develop mechanisms to deal with this stress,” Werntz said. “The alpine plant communities in Olympic evolved without herbivory by mountain goats. Hence, they have not developed mechanisms to cope with it. To solve this problem, the goats need to be removed. Are the people opposed to removal suggesting that we should accept parks in a degraded state?
I don’t think we should.”

Judd said that national parks are supposed to preserve natural functioning ecosystems while providing for the public. Thus, by their very nature, parks are degraded to some extent.

“Keeping the park in its natural state is a fallacy,” Judd said. “People impact the park, too. They don’t have a program to eradicate black slugs. It’s hypocritical of them to seize on goats. The truth is the ecosystem will never be pure. If it were, they would keep people out.”

Periodically, Olympic National Park conducts an aerial census of its goat population. In 1983, the first census estimated 840 to 1,510 goats. Census estimates following the removal program have held steady, ranging from roughly 200 to 400 goats. The summer 2004 census estimated 259 to 320 goats.

“The goats have not rebounded (since the removal program) as quickly as people would have thought, but we are now beginning to see some indications that they are starting to rebound once again on the west side of the park,” Happe said.

An uncertain future

In the Olympics, the future of the non-native mountain goats is uncertain. Current research is attempting to establish a clearer connection between the goats and perceived negative impacts to alpine vegetation. In the short term, however, the park has no plans to further control the population. Public opinion might ultimately decide the goats’ fate in the Olympics.

Meanwhile, in the North Cascades, the results of the current research project likely will lead to new conservation measures to promote mountain goat recovery. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has already undertaken a preliminary measure by reducing the annual number of hunting permits issued each year for mountain goats. The number dropped from 218 in 1991 to 26 in 2001.

“In the future, the (Sauk-Suiattle) tribe would like to have a
viable, healthy population in their historic hunting and wool-
gathering grounds, close to their numbers before the decline,”
Danilson said.

Some individuals have suggested relocating goats from Olympic National Park to the North Cascades.

“That’s definitely a possibility. If they start removing goats from the park again in the future, I could definitely see that happening,” Rice said.

Danilson also said he believes relocation is a possibility in the future.

The mountain goat population in the North Cascades may or may not grow to what it once was. But relocating unwanted goats from Olympic National Park to the North Cascades could be a
productive solution to the state’s mountain goat dilemma.