Groups want mountain goats removed from La Sal Mountains

Groups want mountain goats removed from La Sal Mountains

(Mike Coronella/File Photo)


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SALT LAKE CITY — Wallowing, trampling mountain goats released in the La Sal Mountains are damaging rare species of plants and harming a special research area that is supposed to be managed by the Forest Service to preserve its natural or virgin state, a lawsuit asserts.

The Denver-based Grand Canyon Trust and Utah Native Plant Society sued the U.S. Forest Service in a claim filed this week in the U.S. District Court for Utah, demanding the removal of nonnative mountain goats from the 2,380-acre Mount Peale Research Area and for any more goats to be prohibited.

Research areas, like this one designated in 1988, are part of the national forest system that are supposed to be preserved for their biological diversity, scientific study and educational purposes. In this region, the suit asserts, there are several species of rare native plants, including the La Sal daisy that is found nowhere else in the world.

Although the state sought to introduce mountain goats to the region in the 1980s, the Forest Service found they were not suited for the area and would cause damage to the sensitive vegetation, according to the lawsuit.

By 2013, however, the Utah Wildlife Board approved a program to introduce mountain goats to the La Sal Mountains based on a Mountain Goat Statewide Management Plan that had been adopted, the suit said. Later that year, the state released 20 mountain goats to unfenced state property in the La Sal Mountains and followed it up a year later with another 15 mountain goats set loose on the state property.

The suit contends the federal agency did not consent to the release of mountain goats in the La Sal Mountains and expressed concerns the animals would result in "adverse impacts" in the high alpine areas and to sensitive vegetation, including in the Mount Peale Research Natural Area. The agency also expressed worry, the suit said, that the state would continue its "dumping" of goats on the state property.

The agency later obtained evidence that the goats had already caused damage to vegetation by their digging and wallowing and said the introduction of nonnative species into the Mount Peale Research Area was clearly a violation of federal policy, the suit asserts.

Bill Bates, a wildlife section chief for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said he could not comment directly on the lawsuit, but he said the agency has worked in cooperation with the Forest Service on its mountain goat transplant plan.

The agency did not express concerns early in the process, and a joint monitoring plan will assess conditions on the ground to determine any impacts from the animals, he added.

The groups contend it would be tough to monitor goats' impacts because there was never a baseline from which to compare the vegetation before the animals' arrival.

According to the lawsuit, the Forest Service, too, admitted it would "be difficult to convince (the states) to remove goats based on any kind of monitoring data. They have too many scapegoats on which to blame any detected change — drought, climate change, deer, elk, cows, horses, humans."

Both groups say they have already documented torn, sheared and otherwise damaged plants with goat hoof prints in the area, presented the Forest Service with their findings and insisted the agency had legal authority to remove the goats because they constituted a "special use" and no permit was issued. Furthermore, the groups said the goats constituted property that had been abandoned by the state.

Bates said the agencies' analysis shows that so far, there has been no trampling of rare plants by the animals.

"Any evidence that we or anyone else has collected so far would suggest that is not the case," he said. "There is no scientific evidence to support that."

In addition to the removal of the existing mountain goats, the groups are asking the judge to prohibit any more state introductions of the animals.

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