Post by: Bushcraft on July 01, 2019, 09:51:48 AM
Dr. Richard B. Harris
Section Manager, Game Division, Wildlife Program, WDFW
- Most animals wearing GPS collars moved around quite a bit after release. All of them hunkered down for the winter, moving very little. Some stayed together with others released at the same time; most did not. We have observed movement up into alpine areas in June 2019. In winter, goats generally find places at lower elevations with less snow cover; we saw a similar pattern among translocated goats.
- It is too early to know if goats will find each other, begin breeding, and begin creating mother/young groups typical of thriving mountain goat populations. We expect to gain some preliminary information this summer; ground crews from Western Washington University will backpack up into summer habitat with spotting scopes to document reproduction.
- Among translocated animals older than kid, approximately 70% were still alive as of early June 2019. This is lower survival than we’d generally expect to observe for resident adult mountain goats, but not lower than we’d anticipated, given the particular challenges facing translocated animals.
- Preliminary analyses indicate that no activities related to capture/translocation and under our control predicted whether an adult goat would survive to June 2019. For example, we have no evidence of differences in survival by whether a goat was captured using immobilizing drugs or a net gun, whether it was injured during the capture or not, or how long it took for it be transported and released.
- However, these same analyses indicated that the body condition of the mountain goat when captured did predict whether it survived to June 2019. Veterinarians gave a ‘score’ to each animal when examining it, which largely reflected its underlying nutritional condition. Animals in better condition were more likely to survive than animals in poorer condition. This pattern is expected in populations of free-roaming, wild animals.
- Kid/mother pairs captured, translocated, and released together in September 2018 were generally no longer together by winter. However, five of the 10 kids we have followed were still alive in May or June 2019. Most had found other goats to follow. Acknowledging this small sample size, we find this encouraging because 50% mortality is typical of mountain goat kids that have not been moved or lost contact with their mothers.
Post by: Jpmiller on July 01, 2019, 10:00:10 AM
Post by: Russ McDonald on July 01, 2019, 10:03:40 AM
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