Olympic National Forest trail closed by aggressive goats
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HOODSPORT, Wash. (AP) - A popular trail in the Olympic National Forest remains closed while rangers harass aggressive mountain goats in an attempt to teach them to avoid people.
It's really hikers on the Mount Ellinor Trail who are to blame for feeding goats in the past and letting them lick their hands or backpacks for salt, forest officials said.
Up to 20 goats have been observed on the trail, the Peninsula Daily News reported Thursday.
The trail has been off-limits since early July while rangers throw rocks at the goats, shoot them with paintballs, sound horns and spray chemicals.
"We will reopen the trail as soon as it is safe, but we need to give our strategy time to work," acting Hood Canal Ranger District Forest Supervisor Amanda McAdams said in a statement. "People need to become a part of the solution and not the problem; they can do this by not feeding the goats or allowing them to lick salt from their skin or backpacks."
Violating the closure order could bring a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and six months in jail.
"Co-existence is a two-way street. We want people to keep the goats wild. The goats also need to be taught to respect our personal space and not to approach people," McAdams said.
Aggressive goats can be dangerous.
Robert Boardman, 63, of Port Angeles, was fatally gored in October 2010 by a 370-pound mountain goat on a trail in Olympic National Park. He was trying to protect his wife and other hikers.
The goat is believed to have been one that harassed hikers in the park for years. Although staff tried various techniques for scaring it off and posted signs warning of the danger, they didn't relocate or kill the animal.
Last week a federal judge dismissed most of his widow's wrongful-death suit against the federal government. The judge ruled that the park's actions were immune from lawsuits under the Federal Tort Claims Act because they involved an exercise of discretion related to public policy.
Part of the lawsuit might still go to trial on the claim that park employees failed to act with dispatch to save Boardman's life.
The attack against Boardman occurred about 75 miles northeast of Mount Ellinor. Olympic National Forest surrounds the national park in northwest Washington.
No trails in the national park are currently closed due to goats. Last September, a ranger operating under new mountain goat management rules shot and killed a mountain goat that had refused to leave a park campsite near Upper Royal Basin for three days.
After Boardman's death, park rangers warned hikers to keep at least 50 yards away from goats and not to urinate on trails. The park said the urine creates a long salt lick, attracting the animals.
About 400 of the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 mountain goats in Washington live in the Olympic Mountains.
It's really hikers on the Mount Ellinor Trail who are to blame for feeding goats in the past and letting them lick their hands or backpacks for salt, forest officials said.
Up to 20 goats have been observed on the trail, the Peninsula Daily News reported Thursday.
The trail has been off-limits since early July while rangers throw rocks at the goats, shoot them with paintballs, sound horns and spray chemicals.
"We will reopen the trail as soon as it is safe, but we need to give our strategy time to work," acting Hood Canal Ranger District Forest Supervisor Amanda McAdams said in a statement. "People need to become a part of the solution and not the problem; they can do this by not feeding the goats or allowing them to lick salt from their skin or backpacks."
Violating the closure order could bring a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine and six months in jail.
"Co-existence is a two-way street. We want people to keep the goats wild. The goats also need to be taught to respect our personal space and not to approach people," McAdams said.
Aggressive goats can be dangerous.
Robert Boardman, 63, of Port Angeles, was fatally gored in October 2010 by a 370-pound mountain goat on a trail in Olympic National Park. He was trying to protect his wife and other hikers.
The goat is believed to have been one that harassed hikers in the park for years. Although staff tried various techniques for scaring it off and posted signs warning of the danger, they didn't relocate or kill the animal.
Last week a federal judge dismissed most of his widow's wrongful-death suit against the federal government. The judge ruled that the park's actions were immune from lawsuits under the Federal Tort Claims Act because they involved an exercise of discretion related to public policy.
Part of the lawsuit might still go to trial on the claim that park employees failed to act with dispatch to save Boardman's life.
The attack against Boardman occurred about 75 miles northeast of Mount Ellinor. Olympic National Forest surrounds the national park in northwest Washington.
No trails in the national park are currently closed due to goats. Last September, a ranger operating under new mountain goat management rules shot and killed a mountain goat that had refused to leave a park campsite near Upper Royal Basin for three days.
After Boardman's death, park rangers warned hikers to keep at least 50 yards away from goats and not to urinate on trails. The park said the urine creates a long salt lick, attracting the animals.
About 400 of the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 mountain goats in Washington live in the Olympic Mountains.
I love that headline, all I could imagine was a bunch of goats in police uniforms sectioning off the trail with crime scene tape.
....just call the boys from Enumclaw...they know how to handle them there wild animals.....
The trail was closed by PEOPLE who are too damn stupid to not feed the wildlife. Â Just as PEOPLE are responsible for the mass slaughter of geese, ducks, bears, etc. because they insist on feeding them. Â Let's lay the blame where it belongs and stop blaming the animals. Â How about a fine, a HEAVY fine on people who feed the animals even so much as a crumb of bread? Don't even allow them to BRING food within a hundred feet of the trail.
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As for the goats, clean all the food scraps, garbage cans and whatever human litter is around and keep the trail closed for at least a year. The goats will return to their home forage.
"Rangers are throwing rocks at the goats, shooting them with paintballs, sounding horns and spraying chemicals."
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Whew! For a minute there, I thought it was a story about the Border defense in the South.
The world is full of aggresive goats.
@Commonsense - my experience as someone who has backpacked all over this state my entire life is - in areas where hunting is allowed for goats, they pretty much keep their distance since they have that fear of humans, which isnt a bad thing. I can still photograph them with a zoom lense all day long if I want to. I don't need them 5' away to appreciate them.
I have to agree with TheREALtruth..time for tags to be put in for hunts there.
Now,really. Was the tail closed 'by' the goats or 'because' of the goats?
Just drop a few salt licks far away from the trail in a non sensitive area ... your welcome.
simple fix, either The WDFW needs to allow permit (Draw) hunting there like you have now in the Goat Rocks Wilderness (3 tags) south of Mt Rainier to keep the numbers in check, or transplant them from the Olympics to another area which is open to hunting currently. The Mt. Goats that are in the Mt St Helens backcountry (which is closed to goat hunting currently) all came from the Olympics.Â
@TheREALtruth So what do you do while you let hunters into the park? You would have to close the trails to keep everyone out of the area to make sure no one got shot. People don't expect to have to don hunter orange when they visit a national park. Transplanting the goats has been done to some degree, but is very expensive solution and many people don't want to pay any taxes at all, let alone taxes to pay for relocating mountain goats.
Why would you need to do that? Let me give you an example. Goat Rocks/Tieton River south of MT Rainier has 3 mt goat tags currently under the WDFW Special Permit Drawing. It has been that way up there for decades. As some of you may know, the Goat Rocks is one of the most scenic and heavily traveled wilderness areas in the State. The season for the 3 tags starts September 15th (September 1 if using archery), and to date there has not been one instance of any problems in this area with hunters and hikers or anyone getting shot at, etc. Almost all non-national park areas in this state are open to big game hunting currently, and it is a personal choice for a non-hunting hiker to wear bright or orange colored clothing, or not. The WDFW could also utilize the Master Hunter program also which they have done with sucess with other big game species (elk, deer, moose, bear).
That's a healthy looking goat. Maybe it ate up all of the wildflowers.
So lets get this straight, i'm a little confused here. We bring in the goats. The goats become used to humans. The goats then become aggressive. Then we close the trail because the goats that we brought in got used to humans and now want to attack so they can get free food. Yep, just the hikers fault here. No responsibility on the park rangers or dept of interior or whoever manages these resources.
@TheBronze The goats were brought into the area in the 1920s before the area was a National Park. Not the park rangers or department of the interior's faulth since the animals were introduced before they took over the park. There have been attempts to reduce their numbers by capturing and relocating them over the years, but that is a rather expensive project. The park rangers do their best to educate people about not feeding animals and other behavior that attracts the animals to humans and makes them aggressive. Unfortunately you can't fix stupid so they had to close the trails so that the government doesn't get sued when someone gets hurt.Â
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@Bobby Brown  The goats were introduced to the area way back in the 1920s before it was a national park.  The morons are the people who have fed the goats and done other activities that have encouraged them to become tame and aggressive. Then when people get hurt by the goats they sue the government (the taxpayers) so that's why they have to close the trails.
I hate when they close stuff down because of stupid people. I say post warning signs at the trail heads and leave the trails open to resposible hikers and let the rest get gored.Â
Gore is good!
What you going to do with all those Old Goats in Port Angeles?
I hate getting gored!