Mountain goat population healthy
2002 White Cloud Mountains study deemed inaccurate
By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer
Potential designation of wilderness in the Boulder and White Cloud mountains spurred an unlikely investigation into mountain goat populations in the ranges last winter, and the results showed the goats are doing quite well.
While Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, was piecing together the varying components of a Boulder-White Cloud wilderness bill last year, 2002 surveys surfaced that pointed to a dramatic decline of mountain goat populations, particularly in the White Cloud mountains.
If populations were as low as surveys suggested, expanded wilderness protections might have been instituted to offer the goats additional protections.
?Had it been clear that the goats were on some sort of significant decline, then we would have looked more closely at that,? said Lindsay Slater, Simpson?s chief of staff. ?But it never really became an issue.?
According to a recently released Idaho Department of Fish and Game survey, mountain goat populations in the area are healthy.
?This is a lot more goats than anybody ever expected,? said Fish and Game Conservation Educator Kelton Hatch. ?We heard we had a good population, but herds are expanding and doing really well.?
Hatch works for Fish and Game?s Magic Valley Region, but the Boulder and White Cloud mountain ranges span an area governed by Fish and Game?s Salmon Region as well. The two management areas cooperated on the goat survey, which was conducted during January and February last winter.
From either perspective, goat numbers appear healthy. Populations in the White Cloud and adjacent mountain ranges are up 63 percent over levels indicated in a 2002 survey. Numbers in the White Cloud Mountains alone (hunting unit 36A) are up 124 percent.
Salmon Region Wildlife Manager Tom Keegan thinks he has an explanation.
The 2002 survey, part of the agency?s typical five-year rotation on mountain goat studies, was incomplete, he said.
?In 2002, the surveys were in late April. We had hard, crusty snow, which makes it difficult to track them. It was also later in April, when they might be moving (between winter and summer range),? Keegan said.
In 1988 in the White Cloud Mountains, the state agency estimated the populations at 278 animals, compared with only 146 in 2002. But Keegan maintains that the 2002 numbers are flawed because of incomplete data and borderline monitoring conditions.
?I tried to make that caveat every time we talked about the goat studies,? he said. ?A lot of the reason we went in last winter was to clear up that question mark.?
The Idaho Conservation League, Sawtooth Society and Sawtooth National Recreation Area were also curious enough to help fund the atypically timed study.
To undertake the study, Fish and Game biologists braved Central Idaho?s unpredictable winter weather and flew over the mountain ranges in a Bell 47 Soloy helicopter for a combined total of 22 hours. Keegan said conditions were fair to good during the project period, from Jan. 17 and Feb. 13.
?It?s obviously not the best time from a human standpoint to fly at those altitudes,? said Magic Valley Region Wildlife Manager Bruce Palmer. ?It?s tough to get a day with no wind and no clouds.?
But Fish and Game biologist believe flying in the winter provided them with the most accurate data, and that data indicated an increase in goat populations over the previous survey.
?It?s nice to have some fresh snowfall,? Palmer said. ?When you?re flying goats, they typically are on wind-swept ridges or places the snow does not accumulate. You?re looking for those types of areas, but in the meantime, you?re looking for tracks. I use tracks extensively to find where the critters are.?
It must have worked last winter.
?The number of mountain goats observed during 2004 surveys was similar to the highest levels documented in the last 40 years,? Keegan wrote in a project report. ?This data tends to dispel the notion that mountain goat populations in the project area were significantly declining and reinforces the contention that survey timing and conditions were a primary factor in ability to locate and observe goats.?
Last year, when the most current numbers indicated a dramatic decline in goat populations, Sawtooth National Recreation Area officials contemplated actions they might take to help the animals recover.
Because mountain goats use energy and fat reserves to make it through long winters at high elevations, officials contemplated options they might pursue to reduce potentially stressful encounters with people.
SNRA Backcountry Recreation Manager Ed Cannady said travel restrictions might be necessary.
?We?re going to have to look at the best way to ensure that the goats have the best opportunity, not just to survive, but to bring their numbers back to where they were historically,? he said in the summer of 2003. ?If that includes travel restrictions, then we will definitely look at those.?
Any such restrictions would have included ?any and all travel types, including skiers,? he said.
According to SNRA Biologist Robin Garwood, mountain goats are particularly vulnerable in winter when they are generally confined to lower elevations where they can successfully forage for food. With food sources already waning in winter, the animals must conserve their energy to stay healthy and cannot afford to repeatedly run from their home ranges, she said.
Keegan agreed.
?Basically the way they survive winter is to die slowly until it gets good again,? he said. ?They?re losing body weight and condition all winter, and that?s just how they go through life.?
In addition to the White Cloud and Boulder mountain populations, goats in the Sawtooth Mountains appear to be doing extremely well. Mountain goat numbers there were the highest recorded, with an increase of almost 100 percent over the last survey completed in 1994.
Introduced populations in the Smoky and Pioneer Mountains are also doing well.
?Our goat populations on both sides of Highway 75 have been stable, kind of just in static,? Palmer said. ?Every time we survey it, we find about the same number of critters.?
Mountain goats in the White Cloud and Boulder mountains are the southernmost native goats in North America. They arguably are the signature species of the Sawtooth National Recreation Area.
