More on the Draft Mountain Goat Management Plan
The Idaho Department of Fish & Game recently released the draft Mountain Goat Management Plan for 2025-2030. When approved, this plan will guide the Department’s mountain goat management actions for the next 6 years, including harvest and population monitoring, hunter education, and engagement with land management agencies on recreation and habitat management.
Mountain goats are one of Idaho’s most iconic and elusive big game species. Found only in some of the highest, roughest country, these sure-footed animals live where few others can. For hunters, drawing a mountain goat tag is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and provides a challenge that tops the list for any backcountry hunting enthusiast. Historically, Idaho had many more goats than we have today. The species has faced a multitude of threats, and numbers have declined over time. Changing habitat conditions, increasing and unchecked motorized and non-motorized recreation in alpine habitat, human-mountain goat interaction, disease, and forest management are all factors impacting today’s goat populations.
IDFG outlined its statewide management direction in the draft plan:
Provide maximum harvest opportunity possible while maintaining stable to increasing mountain goat populations in all Population Management Units or PMUs.
Continue to offer controlled hunts and work with hunters to reduce harvest of nannies.
Increase our knowledge of mountain goat survival, recruitment, habitat use, genetics, and impacts of disease, habitat changes, and recreational activities.
Collaborate with land management agencies to incorporate conservation measures which benefit mountain goats in land use and resource management plans.
Provide educational materials about mountain goat biology and behavior to encourage appropriate human behavior when recreating in mountain goat habitat.
Continue to collect mountain goat population monitoring data to evaluate population trends.
A Closer Look at PMUs: One Stable, One Struggling
Idaho is home to 19 different PMUs. While many populations are declining, some are holding strong.
Sawtooth PMU (Stable): The Sawtooth herd is Idaho’s largest, with more than 500 mountain goats recorded during the most recent survey in 2019. Although stable, this population still faces familiar threats, including recreation, habitat loss, and disease. An unusual concern in this area? Road salt. Goats are drawn to the salt used on Highway 21 near Grandjean and Capehorn, leading to near misses and vehicle collisions. In 2024, IDFG began deploying roadside message boards to alert drivers and reduce conflict.
Palisades PMU (Declining): Once offering 24 tags annually, this population - located along the Wyoming border in Unit 67 - has declined so severely that hunting was suspended entirely in 2023. IDFG calls the trend a “drastic and unexplained decline” since 2019. While recreation may play a role, the root causes remain unclear. Learning more about this population is critical to any future recovery. Hopefully IDFG managers can learn something about this worrisome population trend and do something to help reverse it so we can once again have the opportunity to chase goats on this amazing landscape.
What are the “levers” that we, as sportsmen and women, can pull to improve mountain goat populations in Idaho?
All signs point towards our energy being best spent on engaging with federal land management agencies, like the Forest Service, on long-term management plans and associated recreational and travel management to improve conditions for mountain goats and to avoid negative interactions with recreationalists. This includes both motorized and nonmotorized recreation. Human disturbance from recreational activities can occur in all seasons and by various forms, including all-terrain vehicles, motorcycles, helicopters, drones, snowmobiles, snow bikes, backpacking, and backcountry skiing. Negative effects of these disturbances on mountain goats have been well documented and may result in a variety of negative impacts, including habitat abandonment, changes in seasonal habitat use, alarm responses, lowered foraging and resting rates, increased rates of movement, and reduced productivity. IWF is heavily engaged in forest management plans and travel management plans, especially those in mountain goat country. We’ve been the leading sporting voice on forest plan revisions and travel management efforts on the Nez Perce Clearwater and Payette National Forests. We will continue our work with mountain goats in mind as we continue to push the Salmon Challis National Forest on its forest plan revision efforts.
Second, IWF believes that a greater emphasis should be placed on public education. As Idaho grows at one of fastest rates in the country, with many people coming to recreate, there is much work to be done to educate the public on the impacts that recreating in mountain goat country can have on the long-term health of populations. Studies show that despite repeated interactions with recreationists, mountain goats often do not display behavior that reduces their fleeing behavior. And on the other end of the spectrum at times mountain goats can become habituated to humans on popular hiking routes due to being fed and occasionally become aggressive towards people while hoping for a snack or to get the salt where someone had recently urinated. These often lead to a necessary removal of the problem animal.
Greater education should also be placed on tag holders in hunt areas with higher than average nanny harvest, especially when that harvest is showing measurable population declines. We know that asking hunters to only harvest billies places a tremendous onus on the hunter to ensure they are properly field judging sex and it may not be tenable- but we should strive to set hunters up for the most success to harvest billies over nannies.
Finally, IWF understands the difficulties of continuous data collection and conducting regular population surveys. We also understand that as a PMU drops well below the threshold to have a tag issued that resources are diverted elsewhere and other areas are prioritized for flights. That being said, it has been 20+ years since several of these PMUs have had a population survey done. We are encouraging IDFG to survey these populations once again when the opportunity arises. This could be with helicopter flights, ground surveys with staff and/or volunteers, or as technology and models are developed with drones and AI. We understand the limitations on doing these surveys, but hope that we can get a better idea of how some of these populations that have not been surveyed in a considerable time are doing. IWF is working on some internal efforts to build up a volunteer ground survey program.
Check out more on mountain goats at the draft mountain goat management plan here and see IWF comments.