Urine- And Sweat-Loving Mountain Goats Being Airlifted Out Of Olympic National Park

The mountain goats of Olympic National Park have been evicted, partly because of their love of human urine and sweat, which can make them dangerous. Park officials intend to get rid of every last one of them, either by transferring them to another site in Washington state or by killing them. The population was estimated at 725 last year.

Starting next Monday, hundreds of the goats will be airlifted to the northern Cascade Mountains, where there's natural salt for the animals and less chance for them to interact with people. It's the second two-week phase of an airlift that began last September, when 115 of the goats were sent to the Cascades.

"The North Cascades has natural salt licks, while the Olympic Peninsula has virtually none," said Rich Harris, a wildlife manager with Washington state's Department of Fish and Wildlife who specializes in mountain goats. "We'd expect salt hunger to be lower in goats that have natural sources available to them."

Harris said the animals should pose less of a threat in the North Cascades, where visitors are distributed more widely. Officials said the goats are non-native and never belonged in Olympic National Park in the first place, having been there less than a century. Relying on old newspapers and other historical records, park officials determined that about 12 goats were released in the Olympic Peninsula near Lake Crescent from 1925 to 1929, before the park was established.

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https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2019/07/02/stories/1060686299