{"id":313321,"date":"2020-03-10T05:51:12","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T12:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=313321"},"modified":"2022-04-03T15:12:49","modified_gmt":"2022-04-03T22:12:49","slug":"relocating-mountain-goats","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/relocating-mountain-goats","title":{"rendered":"How Technology and Smart Maps Have Helped Hundreds of Relocated Mountain Goats"},"author":5142,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[318502],"tags":[1291,426731,426741,279602],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478412],"esri_blog_department":[478222],"class_list":["post-313321","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental","tag-conservation","tag-mountain-goats","tag-relocation","tag-wildlife","esri-blog-category-wildlife","esri_blog_department-conservation-and-environment"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"Mountain goats that were not native to Olympic National Park were captured, relocated, and monitored using location intelligence.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife deployed location intelligence to relocate <a href=\"https:\/\/wdfw.wa.gov\/species-habitats\/species\/oreamnos-americanus\">mountain goats<\/a> that were not native to Olympic National Park.\r\n\r\nKey Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Washington\u2019s Department of Fish and Wildlife uses GIS to monitor ecosystem balance.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Non-native mountain goats were captured and relocated to a suitable habitat found using GIS analysis.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Real-time tracking offers insight into animal movement and behavior.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"In an orchestrated effort, 275 mountain goats were mugged in Washington\u2019s Olympic National Park and Olympic National Forest. The encounters always end with the animals spirited away to a better place, never to set hoof in the park again.\r\n\r\nThis is true\u2014professionals who humanely trap and transport large animals really are called muggers. And they really are targeting goats who inhabit this park in Washington state, but they have the best interest of the park and the goats in mind.\r\n\r\nThrough no fault of their own, the Olympic National Park mountain goats are interlopers. In the 1920s, when the area was not yet protected land, residents brought in mountain goats probably as game for sport hunting.\r\n\r\nThe goats made themselves at home. They thrived\u2014perhaps a bit too much. Their only predators are mountain lions, which the goats evade by climbing to isolated peaks, and golden eagles, who prey on the young goat kids.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe main reason for removing them from Olympic National Park is that they\u2019re not a native species to the Olympic Peninsula,\u201d said Rich Harris, the now-retired mountain goat specialist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. \u201cThey\u2019ve done very well, but the park doesn\u2019t want to be in the business of managing non-native species, or having them become a major component of the ecosystem. The goats were actually doing serious damage to plant resources that did not evolve in the presence of that particular herbivore.\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Relocation and Ongoing Monitoring<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nThe removal process starts with the muggers spotting a mountain goat, then subduing the animal using a dart gun that delivers a sedative or a net that ensnares the animal. They fit the mountain goat into a harness that attaches to the undercarriage of a helicopter. The animal is flown to a staging area within the park, where a team of veterinarians examine it. If the goat gets a clean bill of health, the Department of Fish and Wildlife introduces the animal to its new home in the North Cascades Mountains\u2014a native habitat for the species."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":313411,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"The Department of Fish and Wildlife and its partners on the tracking project (including the National Park Service, Treaty Tribes from Washington, and US Forest Service) do not take the issue of goat relocation\u00a0lightly. They need to know the goats are in places as hospitable to them as Olympic National Park.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe selected about 12 areas through a process of analysis that occurred many years ahead of the actual implementation,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThe decision was based on where we knew the goats were likely to do well and where there were too few goats now, probably because, in the past, there had been too much hunting. There are a few places in the North Cascades where goats are already doing quite well, so those were not candidate habitats. There was simply no need for new goats there.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe team used a geographic information system (GIS)\u00a0to perform spatial analysis to find good new neighborhoods for the animals. \u201cOur intent was to put them in summer habitats, so they\u2019d look around and say, \u2018Well, I\u2019ve never been here before, but at least it sort of looks like home.'\u201d\r\n<h3><strong>Improving the Process of Animal Tracking<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nMost relocated goats are fitted with GPS tracking collars. By using GIS and web maps to display and share collar data, scientists and wildlife experts are able to monitor the goats as they settle into their new homes. Prior to the introduction of lightweight GPS trackers in the early 2000s, animal tracking devices could only emit radio signals. The person doing the tracking could pick up the signals with a receiver, provided the animal was not too far away, and determine a rough location. The tracking did not leave behind any kind of trail, a record of the animal's wanderings. If you weren\u2019t there to track the animal, it was effectively offline."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":313421,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cAcross species and individual telemetry projects, we\u2019re processing and displaying 1,500 new GPS locations daily,\" said Treg Christopher, a species data systems manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. \u201cThat means you can monitor more animals, in addition to providing better individual animal information, with less effort than what you could with radio telemetry.\u201d\r\n\r\nWith GPS collars and GIS, officials tracking the mountain goats can now see where an animal roams, how much time it spends in one place, how fast it moves, and even whether it has died recently.\r\n<h3><strong>New Insights on Goat Movement and Habitat Use<\/strong><\/h3>\r\nA wave of data this large is essentially worthless without a means to manage and visualize it. Officials involved with the goat relocation program use GIS to display the GPS data on web maps. Because the system works with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/solutions\/industries\/sustainability\/conservation\/overview\">ArcGIS Online<\/a>, the web maps and data are easily shared across organizations."},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[313881,313891]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Having a system in place that facilitated data sharing was a critical component of this project because it is a collaborative effort among several entities including the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, several Treaty Tribes from Washington, the National Park Service, and the US Forest Service.\u00a0 This project would not be as successful if these entities were not able to readily share information.\r\n\r\nBased on the data, the goats have greeted their surroundings with wanderlust. \u201cAlmost all the animals moved away from the initial release site, not in the same direction, and not always together,\u201d Harris said. \u201cWe expected they\u2019d move around a fair amount, but they\u2019ve done that even more than we expected, and there have been some pretty dramatic movements.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe collars help the goat team monitor whether the goats were remaining in their new neighborhoods. The team also wanted to track any rise in the mortality rate, a normal short-term consequence of even careful animal translocation. \u201cI suppose the other objective of being able to track them in near real time was to make sure they weren\u2019t getting into trouble, going to places where they might cause conflicts with people,\u201d Harris said.\r\n\r\nInevitably, some goats have ended up near people. Shortly after the first mugged goats were set free in September 2018, the system showed one of the animals finding its way to a popular hiking trail near North Bend, Washington.\r\n\r\nPark officials contacted the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, concerned that the goat was too much of a hit with hikers. \u201cThey were people who weren\u2019t accustomed to being around animals, and we were afraid they\u2019d start feeding it,\u201d Harris said.\r\n\r\nOn a Friday, the goat team mobilized a crew to apprehend the animal, but it eluded them. Wary of staging a mugging over the weekend, when the trails would be filled with hikers, park officials asked the team to postpone further efforts until Monday. The goat appeared to take a hint.\r\n\r\n\u201cBy Monday, the tracking device was able to tell us that the animal had already moved off on its own,\u201d Harris recalled. \u201cIt traveled 16 kilometers, right back to the area where we wanted it to go. And it\u2019s stayed there ever since.\u201d\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn more about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/field-operations\/overview\">optimizing efficiency in field activities<\/a> with the power of location intelligence."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"<h2><strong>Making Sense of Goat Data<\/strong><\/h2>\r\nCollars that provide GPS-derived location information have transformed the way scientists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/podcast\/protecting-africas-wildlife-in-an-era-of-drones-data-and-digital-mapping\/\">track animals in the wild<\/a>. GPS makes it possible to not only track animal movement but also gather and automatically record an enormous amount of data. For most tracking projects, the recording medium for all this data is GIS technology.\r\n\r\nFor some projects, gathering and visualizing this data reveals sufficient insights. Just as a mapped record of your daily movements can reveal much about where you go, and with whom you associate with, animal experts can quickly glean information about the movement of tagged animals.\r\n\r\nSome studies demand a more complex analysis. For these cases, displaying the data is only the beginning. Within the GIS environment, scientists can analyze huge datasets in search of patterns, trends, and hotspots. They can also use related data, such as elevation and weather patterns, to model the way the animals are likely to behave in the future under various scenarios. This flexibility is particularly useful when studying the goats living in some protected areas of the North Cascades. A GIS helped the experts make choices regarding optimal sites for relocation.\r\n\r\nFinally, the GIS used in the goat project provides a common environment to share the data and communicate with partnering agencies.","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Smart Maps Help Find Suitable Homes for Relocated Mountain Goats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Washington\u2019s Department of Fish and Wildlife deployed location intelligence to relocate mountain goats that were not native to Olympic National Park.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/relocating-mountain-goats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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