Invasive Mtn Goats in GTNP need to be removed

[CoachChris]

These animals need to be removed and selling tags seems like the fiscally responsible way to achieve this.
Article
https://buckrail.com/park-wants-to-...czGtwfeoehKotcyNRDxnyDIVwC95oLRjAAujUSf3QJON0

Public comment
https://parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm?parkID=68&projectID=47959&documentID=90336

 

[26Reload]

Wow...goats and sheep living together....never happened before...
Or does it........oregons northeast has the mix....and seems to be doing fine...
State also sales tags to hunt both critters......
How is it that goats migrating on their own to another home range is any different than say......the friggin wolves swimming across the Columbia to start new lives in Oregon......
I say sell tags and hunt.....but sell Nanny and Billie tags to keep the population under control......be wise about it and they won't travel down to the Hwy and vet splattered by cars......

 

[CoachChris]

How is it that goats migrating on their own to another home range is any different than say......

They're not native to the Tetons.
Idaho F&G introduced them to the Snake River Range in the 60's.
They didn't migrate from their home range.
They are making it more difficult for the native Bighorn Sheep

 

[26Reload]

Why eradicate a goat over a predator like a wolf.....
The goats in oregon as far as i know had no actual residency...the f&g just decided that was an option for a rather deserted area other than some sheep....
Make tags available and let the people manage the critter....
Bighorns migrate as well as any critter....even where protected...the desert sheep of Hart Mountain Refuge found themselves in a predicament when the cougar found them....the sheep moved to the desert...off the mountain...
No different than the elk migrating away from densities of wolves.....
Move it or lose it......would be easy to kill off all the goats...is it righteous...no..whom says goats werent there millions of years ago...
And if we go that far....these northern wolves and timber wolves are all
imposters to the original wolf.....the Dire Wolf....which could bring down buffalo sized game solo......different world these days....

 

[sp6x6]

They live side by side and have for years in my back door 35m away Mt.Both get to record size in Mt

 

[RockyMtnMT]

We'll take them here in the mission range.

 

[CoachChris]

Why eradicate a goat over a predator like a wolf....

They're not eradicating the goats in favor of the wolf.
They're removing the goats because they are competing directly with the indigenous Bighorn Sheep.
Just because goats and sheep can coexist in one ecosystem doesn't mean they can coexist in another.
Removing the goats is not open for discussion. How to remove them is.

 

[26Reload]

What the big picture is..is screwed up..can you rightly say the bighorns are "native to those mountains"...the word native has been thrown around and shoved down throats a long time....
Was the original sheep herd EVER anywhere else....meaning...have they lived there since the beginning of time.....sounds absurd doesn't it....thats what native to the park means in this case......were those sheep chased up there due to hunting pressures....
I guided on the oregon coast for nearly 20 years....steelhead and salmon...
Do you think native steelhead exist over there.....take a guess...and i bet you say yes....early 1900s the government was involved in poisoning ALL the rivers over there to kill the steelhead off..they basicslly did...just so some commercial canning company could get a secondary fish put into the system..the coho salmon.....so they poisoned the steelhead and tried to develope the coho...didnt work...wrong spawning grounds for coho to sustain themselves.......
The government had to try to bring back the steelhead to fix their screwup....so they got steelhead from the big runs in idaho at the time...so basically all 20# steelhead on the coastal streams owe their gene pool to the idaho strain of steelhead....archive paperwork shows that a typical large steelhead from the oregon water only weighed 10#...
Native sheep.....no way....mans influence has changed all of the Native lands and animals.....
Those goats know nothing else as do the sheep that exist there....their biological lifespan does no longer go back to introduction dates...they are all gone...the remainder of the goats are Home....

 

[shaughn]

Much better idea to issue tags then capture/cull...cheaper too

 

[yorke-1]

There's a similar situation here in WA where they're removing goats from Olympic NP. Mountain goats are just a little too good at adapting to new territory.

Selling special "damage permits" would generate a lot of revenue for the game department.

 

[CoachChris]

What the big picture is..is screwed up..can you rightly say the bighorns are "native to those mountains"...the word native has been thrown around and shoved down throats a long time....

I can't rightly say anything about the sheep or the goats I'm not a biologist or a zoologist.
My field is the application of sports science as it relates primarily to endurance and ultra endurance athletes

 

[Beardeddeer91]

It would be tricky to issue tags to the public because they are in a NP (I wish we could hunt NPs and belive many NPs need hunting to properly manage some wildlife populations). The main concern is disease transmission, especially M. ovi in the Bighorn populations.

 

[MTGunner]

Yep, ship 'em to the Missions! Need more goats from different blood line to procreate and have a sustainable, healthy herd. MTG