Mountain Goats in Jeopardy

A mountain goat in Montana

In a status review of Montana's mountain goats that a colleague and I completed in 2017, we found that Montana's native mountain goat populations had declined 70% since the previous statewide assessment 70 years earlier. Yes, 70%!

We attributed much of the decline to excessive sport harvest of the species during the mid-1900s. A lack of reliable population management data, limited knowledge of the species' population biology, human habitat impacts, and other suspected factors contributed to the slide. All populations across Montana were subject to hunting, during all or many of those 70 years. Providing a useful comparison were the goats in Glacier National Park that had not been hunted since the park's establishment in 1910.

Indeed, by the early 2000s more goats inhabited Glacier (roughly 2,000 animals) than remained in all of Montana's native populations outside the park. Just when we thought that overharvest may be the leading driver of declines in goat numbers, this comes along. In a 2026 paper published in Ecosphere science journal, the authors reported a steep decline in Glacier Park's goat numbers. Using standardized, ground survey proceedures, annual surveys showed a 45% population decline during 2008 through 2019. Although the study could not definitively elucidate the causes for the observed decline, several unfavorable conditions consistent with the changing climate are suspected, including the rapid loss of snow and ice from alpine habitats. Rather than reiterate those discussions here, I suggest you look at the paper in Ecosphere.

The study's surprising and dispiriting results confirm how rapidly the fortunes of this species can erode. In Life on the Rocks, I reviewed the mountain goat's continental status. Native mountain goat populations across its southern distribution in the US and Canada have been sliding downward for decades. And because of the species' very low annual reproductive output -- even in good years -- population recovery may be slow or unlikely.

Across its southern distribution of the US and Canada, wildlife managers have slashed hunting permits in an effort to stabilize mountain goat populations. Yet in most cases, recovery of numbers has largely been disappointing. It appears that this is yet one more species whose future may be in jeopardy in a rapidly warming world. We know what we must do. Can we find the will to do so?