Olympic National Park Mountain Goat Removal and Translocation to the North Cascades: Progress Report II

On June 18, 2018, after years of planning and extensive public review, the regional director of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) signed a Record of Decision, authorizing the beginning of a plan to remove mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) from Olympic National Park (as well as adjacent portions of the Olympic National Forest). For the first few years of this work, the approved plan called for most mountain goats to be captured live and transported to staging areas on the Olympic Peninsula where they would formally become the responsibility of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). From these staging areas, mountain goats would then be transported to pre-selected staging areas in the North Cascades, and then brought to release locations where they would be returned to the wild.

Details of the rationale and plans are contained in the Final Environmental Impact Statement and the Record of Decision (both available at https://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?projectId=49246). This report provides an overview of the capture and translocation efforts during the first 3 bouts (September 2018, July 2019, and August 2019). Because a previous progress report reviewed work accomplished during September 2018 (Happe and Harris 2018), this report focuses on work conducted during 2019. Future progress reports will cover activities during 2020. Technical reports for the scientific literature will follow as appropriate.