Where people go, mountain goats follow

Hike the Hidden Lake Overlook Trail in Glacier National Park during the summer and you’re almost assured of seeing a mountain goat.

The area is excellent goat habitat, according to University of Montana biologist and researcher Wesley Sarmento.

But the goats are also drawn there for another big reason: Salt.

Sarmento currently has 22 goats fitted with radio collars from the Logan Pass area as part of a three-year-study of the iconic creatures.

Most mammals in Glacier, including mountain goats, are salt deficient. Nannies need minerals and salts for milk production and hair, bone and horn growth. The lush green alpine plants they eat are low in natural mineral content.

In a normal mountain goat environment, they would travel to natural mineral licks — limestone deposits in the soil. Goats and other ungulates have been known to travel for miles to get to these places, taught the routes by hundreds of years of generations of furry kin.

But at Logan Pass, the goats increasingly have been getting their salt from a completely unnatural source — human sweat, urine and car antifreeze.

This summer the park estimates that about 1,300 people a day hike the Hidden Lake Trail and at least some of those people have to relieve themselves in the bushes. Human urine is high in salt. The salt, in turn, attracts the goats.

Sarmento’s study tracked the goats and found they were keying in on Logan Pass urine and sweat. The Logan Pass goats traveled more than goats going to mineral licks. A goat going to a mineral lick might stay there a few days or weeks, enough to replenish its body’s need for salt.

But a goat at Logan Pass is moving more, visiting multiple spots of urine or sweat to fulfill its salt needs, preliminary results from his study have found.

The Logan Pass goats are making short journeys while a natural lick is a much longer undertaking, exposing the goats to predators.

In addition, the Logan Pass goats appear to be using the presence of humans as a shield against predators. Sarmento tested this theory by visiting remote goat licks that are away from people. There, he found far more evidence of predation — goat bones and remains.

But at Logan Pass, no carcasses were found.

He also found that goats at Logan Pass are more brazen and they travel much farther away from escape cliffs than wild goats in more remote regions of Glacier do.

Researchers even donned outfits that made them look like grizzly bears. When they approached the wild goats, the goats ran away. The goats at Logan Pass were far less likely to flee.

“It appears people are providing a safe zone,” he said.

The goats at Logan Pass have learned over the years the dual benefits of humans.

Perhaps one of the most telling parts of the study to date came completely by accident.

The Reynolds Creek Fire closed Logan Pass to humans in late July for more than a week while the fire cooked the east side of Going-to-the-Sun Road.

Sarmento’s study found that when the people were gone, the goats didn’t hang around. They had no protection and no fresh salt.

“What we saw was the goats reduced their use of the area,” he said.

How healthy all of this is for goats remains to be seen.

There is evidence to suggest the Logan Pass goats may be forgoing natural migration patterns to mineral licks in favor of human salt. Another big problem is the goats simply get too close to people. Park regulations call for people to get no closer than 25 yards to goats and other like animals.

But the goats at the Hidden Lake Trail lay down in the trail itself and lick salt off the boardwalk, despite the park’s best efforts.

While no one has been gored in Glacier, in Olympic National Park a man was killed by an aggressive billy goat.

One possible solution in Glacier is to urge people to shoo away the goats, but everyone would have to buy into that, Sarmento noted. Olympic hired full-time staffers to haze goats, but that didn’t work. As soon as they left, the goats returned.

Another possible solution is a toilet at the Hidden Lake Overlook, but that would take dozens of overflights a summer via helicopter to remove the waste, another distasteful solution.

Next summer, Glacier is looking to use a trained border collie to shoo mountain goats and bighorn sheep out of the Logan Pass parking lot and other congested parking areas near the pass.

Sarmento’s study, in cooperation with the park, supervisory biologist Mark Biel and noted biologist Joel Berger, is ongoing and will wrap up next year. Sarmento is interested in hearing from anyone who finds a goat carcass.

His email is wesley1.sarmento@umontana.edu.

Results from the study will be used in helping craft a Sun Road Corridor General Management plan — a long-term vision for the entire Sun Road corridor.