Critter of the Month: Mountain Goat
It’s finally summer in the Pacific Northwest, with the snow cover at long last giving way to flower-filled meadows waiting to be explored. With the return of high mountain hiking season, it’s time for my favorite critter quest - searching for mountain goats!
Since mountain goat herds stay on the move, roaming across favored feeding and resting places, finding them takes some good luck. But visiting areas they are known to frequent can up your odds of a sighting. One large herd hangs out on the northeast side of Mount Rainier National Park and can often be spotted along Sunrise area trails. I’ve had many encounters here, including this great moment last summer when a group crossed the Wonderland Trail in front of me. Where goats aren’t hunted - such as in the park - they are quite curious and easily observed. I love watching the young goats playfully sparring and the social interactions between the adults.
Mountain Goat Likes: Natural mineral licks to meet their nutritional requirements during the spring and summer. The need to replenish these salts in their diets propels them to leave the safety of inaccessible slopes to feed on mineral rich soils, making them vulnerable to predation.
Mountain Goat Dislikes: Going solo. Mountain goats live in herds to find safety in numbers. With so many eyes looking out for danger it would be tough to make a sneak attack. Females, kids, and young males for the primary herds while bands of older males usually roam close by.
Mountain Goat Super Power: Scaling nearly vertical cliff faces in alpine habitats. Mountain goats, especially females with young, usually stay close to cliffs where they can make a quick escape. Their two-toed hooves have rubbery pads to grip the rock and spread wide to offer traction. Powerful legs propel their bodies upward with little effort. Despite their large size, mountain goats have narrow bodies that allow them to traverse narrow ledges as they clamber along the cliffs.
These photos were all taken over the last few years - hopefully I’ll have more good goat luck this year!
Mountain goats can become habituated to people, often frequenting popular hiking areas in both the Olympics and Cascades. This was an up-close goat encounter at Lake Ingalls in the Central Cascades.
Relocating Mountain Goats from the Olympics
In Washington, mountain goats are native only to the Cascade mountains but were introduced into Olympic National Park in the 1920s. A century of goat population growth led to damage to the unique alpine ecosystem there and created public safety issues, with mountain goats closely approaching hikers, seeking salt and minerals from sweaty clothes and urine.
In September 2018, the National Park Service began a plan to remove the goats, initially capturing animals and relocating them to bolster herds in the Cascades. In 2021, efforts switched to a lethal removal phase to eliminate the remaining animals. Altogether, 325 goats have been relocated and 152 lethally removed. Removal efforts targeting the remaining animals are continuing in the park this summer. Read more about the effort here.
Check out the video below to see some amazing images of what it takes to fly mountain goats out of the remote Olympic wilderness!