Mountain Goats 7-19-2009

[shanevg]

My wife and I went for a hike after church today, and saw 62 mountain goats.  Pretty good afternoon if you ask me.  The populations look healthy, saw a collared goat that I saw in the same place a couple of years ago.  In the big herds, it seemed to be pretty steady at 1 kid for every 2 - 2.5 adults.  Seems like a pretty good ratio to me. 

Here is a pic of a herd of 33, I never got very close to this herd. 




I did stalk up on this herd of at least 22 probably a few more.  They kept milling around and I never got a 100% accurate count.  (My count of 62 mountain goats is on the conservative side though.)




Some close ups from the herd:






When I was stalking up on the herd, there were 3 billies in the back that caught my movement, they wouldn't stop staring me down.  As they watched, I could hear the rest of the herd moving on.  Wanting more pictures, I backed off and tried to go around, I walked no more than 20 yards and had a nanny and two kids standing at 10 feet.  They took off before I got a picture, but soon a second nanny stepped out in the same spot trying to figure out what was going on.  This picture is taken without any zoom at all.




If I had just stayed put, the whole herd probably would have fed right by me, bummer.  I still got some more pictures as the herd milled around trying to figure out exactly what was going on.  Later I did see a group of 2 way off in the distance all by themselves.  Probably a couple of billies just hanging out. 

[shanevg]

Here is a comparison of the collared nanny from 2 years apart.  First pic 2 years ago (September) second pic today.

[JoeVon]

Shane, not sure if you've seen this before but its definitley worth a look.  Very Informative.  Its a shame Washington doesn't do something like this.

http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/hunt_trap/hunting/goat/goat_long_quiz_for_web.pdf

[shanevg]

Shane, not sure if you've seen this before but its definitley worth a look.  Very Informative.  Its a shame Washington doesn't do something like this.

http://www.wc.adfg.state.ak.us/hunt_trap/hunting/goat/goat_long_quiz_for_web.pdf

Yeah, I have it saved on my desktop!  I believe that Washington actually does do something like that (at least that's what WDFW told me).  I was told that every successful applicant receives a video that shows how to determine the difference between a billy and nanny.  Hopefully that is actually true, I'll have to ask a couple of the hunters who drew this year to find out.  It definitely takes a lot of practice though.  I know that both the Chowder Ridge and Avalanche Gorge hunters (from what I've been told) shot nannies last year.  The best way to tell is to keep getting out there and getting close to goats and learning to tell the difference, but even still it can be hard.  I'm not 100% sure whether that goat in the 3rd picture is a billy or nanny.  It has a uniform curl throughout its horn which is indicative of a billy, but it does not have a lot of mass or defined roman bulge on its nose which is indicative of a billy.  I am guessing that the lack of mass and the fact that it was hanging out with yearlings in a large herd means that it is a nanny, but at the same time there was at least one billy in this same herd and I have seen a number if billies hanging out with nannies this summer so who knows for sure.  Regardless, it is a lot of fun to get close to these animals and be able to photograph them.  It is amazing to see such variety in God's creation!

[bucklucky]

Nice pics. Man that is some awesome country!

[JoeVon]

Ya Shane, I'd say the third pic was a nanny.  But jeesh, some of the nanny's you've been posting are HUGE!

[shanevg]

Ya Shane, I'd say the third pic was a nanny.  But jeesh, some of the nanny's you've been posting are HUGE!

Yeah, that's what happens when you have a heard of goats that's barely been hunted in the past 15 years. 

[searchnfor]

Very Nice Shane! Thanks for posting, keep them coming!

[SHANE(WA)]

cool pics
that one nanny his huge

[PacificNWhunter]

Very nice pictures!

[actionshooter]

Love the goat pics!! 

The shadow in the 2nd pic looks like the big bad wolf   

[h2ofowlr]

Great pics.  Are these in Washington or in B.C.

[shanevg]

Great pics.  Are these in Washington or in B.C.

All these goats are in WA.

[sagerat]

Awesome!!! Man you really deserve that tag, did you buy any raffle tickets?

[ramslam]

I drew a Naches/Corral Pass in 2005 and did receive a "Is it a Billy or is it a Nanny" VHS tape from WDFW.  Unfortunately a previous hunter left it in his/her VCR and it was a copy of the 2004 World Series of Poker.