Significance for Wildlife Management of the late Quaternary Biogeography of Mountain Goats (Oreamnos Americanus) in the Pacific Northwest, U.S.A.

Abstract

Management policy of the U.S. National Park Service regarding mountain goats (Oreamnos americanus) in Olympic National Park, Washington, is founded in part on the argument that alpine environments there evolved through the late Quaternary without mountain goats. Descendants of mountain goats artificially introduced to park lands in the 1920s are being experimentally sterilized and translocated to control population size. The potential that Oreamnos sp. colonized and inhabited the Olympic Mountains during the late Quaternary is, however, great. Prehistoric and historic extralimital records of mountain goats in Oregon and northern California, the Wisconsin glacial and floral histories, and the modern distributions of other alpine and subalpine mammalian taxa suggest the Puget lowland served as a biogeographic filter rather than a barrier for mammalian taxa during periods of maximum glacial extent. Extirpation of isolated mountain goat populations on mountains of Oregon, California, and Washington apparently took place throughout the Holocene. Future documentation of the prehistoric occurrence of Oreamnos sp. in the Olympic Mountains should prompt rethinking of National Park Service wildlife management policy.