Glacier Park goats show resilience
They’ve endured blizzards, wind, rain and hail storms, dodged avalanches and negotiated cliffs and crags that would make a seasoned mountaineer take pause, but 24 mountain goats in Glacier National Park all survived last winter without a hitch.
The radio-collared goats are part of a three-year study being done by the National Park Service and University of Montana graduate student Wesley Sarmento.
The high survival rate is pretty remarkable, said Mark Biel, natural resources program manager for the Park. Biel is overseeing the study for the Park Service.
Of the 24 goats, eight are wearing GPS collars, which send out data on the creatures every two hours. Since the study began in late 2013, biologists have gathered more than 40,465 data points on the goats. Biologists first collared six goats and then the rest last year. All told, 17 are female and the rest are males.
Strung together, the data is painting biologists a clearer picture of the herd and its movements, which roams from Mount Cannon in the winter to Logan Pass and beyond in the summer.
“It’s one of the largest datasets for mountain goats in the lower 48,” Biel said.
The park initiated the study to examine the goat’s interaction with visitors at Logan Pass, which sees thousands of people a day. Previous studies have shown that a goat living off the Hidden Lake Trail will see a person every few seconds as a parade of visitors hike the boardwalk.
The mountain goats so far have proven extremely tolerant of people, but the Park still has concerns that a person could be injured by a goat. They have extremely sharp horns. Preliminary data from the study has already shown that the goats at Logan Pass stay farther away from cliff escapes routes than goats living in more “wild” terrain in the Park, suggesting the goats may be using humans as shields against predators. The goats may also be attracted to humans for another reason: Salt. Salt from sweat and human urine is in the nearby bushes and railings on the boardwalk.
While older goats have sharp horns, kids do not, and are vulnerable to predation, particularly in their first few years of life.
The oldest goat in the study is a female that biologists estimate is at least 12.
“She’s still going strong,” Biel said.
While the bulk of the herd travels from Cannon to Logan Pass, a distance of about 2 ½ to 3 miles as the crow flies, some goats have traveled farther, Biel noted.
Some goats have recently gone to the Swiftcurrent area of Many Glacier and another billy goat spent much of last summer near Sperry Chalet.
Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks helped with the study, lending its expertise in collaring the animals as well as allowing the Park to use three additional GPS collars.
The study will help the Park as it crafts its Sun Road Corridor management plan as it looks to find a way to allow visitors to view goats as safely as possible without harm to the goats or the visitor.
The study is expected to wrap up in July 2016, when the programmed collars are set to fall off the goats. Biologists would like to do a park-wide goat study, as the animals, which are uniquely adapted to a snowy environment, are potentially threatened by a warming world. Funding for such a study, however, has yet to be secured.