PORT ANGELES  — Round 2 of the goat translocation effort has concluded in Olympic National Park, with at least one more round to go, scheduled for August.

Park wildlife official Patti Happe says she’s pretty happy with the result given this month’s weather.

“Given the weather that we were were handed, it went really well. I just I couldn’t believe that it was July. It seemed like it was more May or June when we were up there. We had a lot of rainy days and cold days. And so there was a lot of times when the helicopter just could not fly or like, portions of the Olympics, there were mountain goats where we just could not get to safely. So we worked with what we were given, and we were able to remove 89 goats from the Olympics and translocate several to the Cascades. So I’m pretty pleased, but wish we could have done better, but you know, hopefully it’s a warmer and drier August.”

The program to remove the non-native goats from the Park and Olympic National Forest began last year in September, when 115 goats were captured, most of them relocated to their native Cascade Mountains where populations in some areas have depleted.

Happe described the first group of goats as “low hanging fruit” compared to the difficulty of capturing those that are left.

“Yeah, I think we’re pretty much done with catching goats on Klahhane Ridge. We got 31 off of that area last September and we got a couple more this time, but they’re just no more catchable goats up there. The few that are remaining just know what the helicopter means and the crew could not safely capture them. So we’ll be moving to other areas and kind of focusing our attentions more deeper in the park where it is a longer ferry ride to the capture, it’s going to be less efficient. So around Olympus and then in August, we’re also going to focus on the group of goats that are around Mount Ellinor.”

To learn more about the goat translocation program, click here.