Mountain goats introduced to the Olympic high country in the 1920s were not native and damaged fragile alpine plants over the following decades. In a recent multi-year effort, the National Park Service captured the goats and airlifted them by helicopter to the Cascade Range, their natural habitat, allowing native vegetation in the meadows to begin recovering.
Here's one that surprises people. For nearly a hundred years, mountain goats clambered around these peaks, white and shaggy against the rock, and almost everyone assumed they belonged here. They didn't. People hauled them in back in the nineteen twenties, and the goats started tearing up native plants that had no defense against them. So in recent years the park did something remarkable: they sling-loaded the goats out under helicopters and flew them across to the Cascades, where they actually belong. The high country is quieter now, and the wildflowers are coming back.
Photo: GlacierNPS · Public domain
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