Hiking Safely With Goats
This Service-First video titled, “Hiking Safely with Goats” provides guidance and educational value for people recreating in areas where they are likely to have interactions with mountain goats.
This Service-First video titled, “Hiking Safely with Goats” provides guidance and educational value for people recreating in areas where they are likely to have interactions with mountain goats.
My motto when dealin’with all critters is ANYTHING’LL attack yu if they’re scairt or ya come on’em suddenlike. Ya gotta use common scence and read universal body-language…most everything down to an amoeba does that and unnerstands it.
nice! This was helpful…
Thanks
This video seems criminally negligent for completely underplaying how aggressive these goats can get and for implying that the advice here can save you if a truly aggressive goat comes after you. No mention of the space blanket, the only thing that seemed to get the goat to back off on the fatal day that Bob Boardman was killed. The video also fosters the false implication that goats are natural wildlife in the Olympics. And the music is designed to give the impression that "everything is under control, we know what we’re doing." This, sadly, is not the case.
Beyond the banality of this video is the fact that all of the Park’s attempts at public education are useless in the well-touristed parts of goat country, where every day in the summer, dozens of visitors from around the globe saunter around in goat country with nary a clue as to what they’re doing, and if they do bother to read the advice on the goat notice, which they often don’t, it doesn’t explain what they’re supposed to do, for instance, when they’re on the way back on a hike, and all of a sudden there are a bunch of goats standing ahead of them on the trail, in a place where you can’t walk around them. If the Park’s advice were followed literally, you’d “stay away” and hope that they went away and didn’t come toward you. Why don’t they present a realistic scenario about that, not to mention what to do when a testosterone-crazed goat is suddenly on you showing deadly behavior?
There are problems with this video. First, the guideline of staying more than 50 yards away from goats is given in the narrative. However, hikers are clearly shown in much closer proximity to goats in the video (video time 1:09-1:17). This tacitly implies that the producers of the video really think that the 50 yard guideline is OK to ignore. They mention in passing that twice that distance should be used as a guideline in the fall (rutting season).
Secondly, the narrative mentions that goats should not be surrounded. This implies that surrounding goats is something that we as a group of hikers might do with some degree of intent. However, goats often enter a group of hikers and become surrounded (video time 1:16). In the video, no action is suggested for the situation when goats wander into a group of hikers. Iin fact, one of the hikers pictured is sitting at a lower level than the goat and the person appears to be unaware of the goat’s presence. Again, this photo tacitly suggests that goats are not really a potential threat.
Thirdly, there is little guidance offered for the situation where one or more aggressive goats is/are encountered in an area where retreat is impossible, such as on a steep side-hill trail. Specifically, one tactic that might work that is not mentioned is to have a space blanket available to shake at aggressive goats–they may be familiar with humans, but hopefully not a space blanket. This tactic is known to have worked in at least one critical situation.
Fourth. It’s interesting to note that USFS Wildlife Biologist Kurt Aluzas appears to be carrying pepper spray (video time 3:19). No mention of the legality of carrying or the effectiveness of use of pepper spray is presented.
I speak as a retired National Park Service Ranger, having served at Olympic National Park for 24 years. During that time I had an uneasy confrontation with a goat on High Divide in which I was hemmed in by high, dense spirea brush on both sides of a trail with no chance of safe retreat. The only device that I had available for protection was an ice axe. Had the goat not backed out of the brush lane, my only option other than jumping off a cliff would have been battling with the large male goat that could easily have caused me serious injury.
It would be interesting to hear from others who have had close encounters with threatening goats and how they dealt with those situations.
Throw a SNOWBALL near the goat,or at it. Goat won’t get its feelings hurt!
You city slickers need to keep your dogs under control too.
Thank you.
great video! youtube needs more of these. thanks again for making this. – stony
Great video!
So…. no urinating on the goats
Goat impacts: 1. Human death 2. Habitat degradation scrounging for salt on peed-on plant matter. Neither of these highly important negative impacts was emphasized in this video. Needs more work.
Ya’ll people gettin’ all prissy, knowitall, and self-righteously indignant about other folk’s "criminal negligence" and the like are a buncha azzoles. Hope I never meet the likes o’ you on any trail I’m on ’cause I’ll fill yer sorry city asses fulla buckshot.