Olympic National Park's population of nonnative mountain goats has grown past 600 animals and could increase by 45 percent over the next five years if current reproduction trends continue and no efforts are made to blunt the population, according to a report from the U.S. Geological Survey.
The population survey conducted this past summer from the air confirmed that the mountain goat population in the park has been growing steadily for more than a decade and indicates that it has more than doubled over the past dozen years, according to the report. Three successive surveys show that the population of non-native mountain goats in the Olympic Mountains increased at an average rate of 8 percent annually from 2004-2016.
Olympic National Park officials currently are developing a plan for managing the nonnative animals.
This plan/EIS will provide management direction to address resource stewardship and human safety concerns resulting from the presence of non-native mountain goats within Olympic National Park. The Mountain Goat Management Plan will consider potential impacts to park resources and values, including visitor experience, wilderness character, vegetation, wildlife and habitat, park operations, and cultural resources.
The plan/EIS also proposes moving goats from the Olympic Peninsula to native mountain goat habitat on the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie and Okanagan-Wenatchee National Forests.
In July 2016, wildlife biologists from the National Park Service and Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife counted mountain goats from a low-flying helicopter, focusing on ice-free areas above 4,500 feet in elevation in Olympic National Park and adjacent areas of Olympic National Forest.
The survey methods were determined from previous studies of GPS-collared mountain goats conducted collaboratively by USGS, WDFW, and NPS. These methods, now used throughout Washington, account for sampling uncertainty and the possibility that not all mountain goats present are seen during aerial surveys. Therefore, the 2016 survey total of 623 mountain goats is an estimate, with the uncertainty of the estimate ranging from 561 to 741 mountain goats.
There were 230 mountain goats estimated from surveys conducted in 2004 and 350 estimated in 2011, yet differences in areas surveyed during survey years prevent a direct comparison of those estimates to the current estimate. Instead, researchers adjusted numbers of goats observed in each survey to comparable survey areas to deduce population trends.
The National Park Service, in cooperation with the U.S. Forest Service and WDFW, is preparing an environmental impact statement for managing the park’s population of non-native mountain goats. More information about this planning process is available online.
Mountain goats were introduced to the Olympic Mountains in the 1920s, before establishment of Olympic National Park, and have since colonized the entire range, with most of the population residing within the park.
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Read this Book: White Goats, White Lies ...Abuse of Science In Olympic NP
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!"
-- Carl Sagan, Astronomer
"Although mountain goats are native to the Cascade range, they do not appear to have been present in the Olympic Mountains during historic times. Wildlife managers introduced goats in small numbers in what became Olympic National Park in 1925 and sporadically thereafter for the next twenty years. Because of its protected status, the goat population burgeoned. From the 1950s through the 1970s the goats were one of the features the Park Service used to attract visitors. Then the values of the Park wildlife managers shifted. According to a 1981 statement by the National Park Service (NPS), the mountain goats in Olympic National Park "appear to be significantly altering the alpine ecosystem the park was designed to protect and preserve.
As a result, park managers have argued that the goats must be eradicated." An eradication program has been in place for several years now. The surrounding controversy has made for strange bedfellows: archaeologists, animal rights activists, and politicians vs. the Sierra Club and National Park Service. White Goats, White Lies does not argue for or against eradication of "exotics" in Olympic and other national parks. Rather it examines the science used to justify the current park position and questions the extent to which science is an afterthought to NPS decisions. Author R. Lee Lyman questions the notion underlying current park management philosophy that posits an edenic, prehuman condition in nature by which wilderness and park health can be measured. Lyman asserts that it is both difficult to know with certainty what the "pre-goat" ecosystem was and that such static, pristine models fail to take into account the role of native human populations or even climatic variation. In the face of proposed "active rehabilitation" by the NPS, he counters that this is yet another example of god-playing, as questionable as the original introduction of the mountain goats."
But it IS possible to know with certainty that the Olympic Mountains were part of the native range of wolves, and that wolves predate upon mountain goats. Anyone opposing a NPS management strategy to keep mountain goats from devouring the entire alpine flora, would necessarily have to advocate for reintroduction of wolves. The NPS, based on over 30 years' experience in the high Olympics, knows that it is unable to control the exploding goat population without shooting them. The NPS also knows that the goats are causing widespread destruction in the high country as a result of their wallows and their overgrazing.
On April 11, 2017 Olympic National Park's biologist Dr. Happe presented a preview of the soon to be released mountain goat EIS. Dr. Happe clearly indicated the desired non-native goat population in ZERO. It was particularly interesting to learn that after more than 30 years of surveying, studying, managing and dealing with the unwanted non-native goats, there is no accounting to understand the cost to taxpayers to this date nor of the future cost of eradicating or relocating the goats. I look forward to reading the upcoming EIS (the second one on the subject) in the hopes that it includes the money discussion. However, she did present data to show that the population is increasing at a rate of 8% per year and that the goats are showing up in unexpected places.
Remember the old addage that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing with hopes of a different outcome? I hope that the future plan includes results-oriented measureable milestones.
The cynical view is that the desired outcome is to create a perpetual state of employment based on an unwanted goat population or that the goats present a backdoor and unstated way to re-introduce wolves into the park.