OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK – Olympic National Park officials are calling the first round of mountain goat translocations a success, with 98 goats moved to the North Cascades in a two-week period. 115 goats were captured, but six didn’t survive being darted or netted, two died during helicopter transport on the first day, six kids were given to Northwest Trek Wildlife Park west of Mount Rainier, and three were euthanized because they were “unfit for translocation”, according to state officials.

The operation ended Monday, with two more similar captures planned for next year. It was a collaborative effort between a long list of agencies and groups, including the Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, and eight area tribes. The helicopter crew was a private company, Leading Edge Aviation, which specializes in the capture of wild animals. They used tranquilizer darts and net guns to capture the goats and transported them in specially made slings to the staging area on Hurricane Hill Road. Due to weather, the helicopter crew was only able to operate for 10 out of the 14 days, and several of those days ended early.

This effort to translocate the goats, which are not native to the Olympic Peninsula, was to re-establish depleted populations in the Washington Cascades. While some mountain goat populations in the north Cascades have recovered since the 1990s, the species is still absent or rare from many areas of its historic range.