Camping & Hurricane Ridge...
Olympic National Park is not ONE park. To see the various highlights, we had to leave and enter at different places. This entrance, by the town of Port Angeles, provided us with a special campground for two nights and the opportunity to gain elevation while ogling nature. SWEET.
Okay, this was one of the most unique things we've seen. That is a goat in that sling, under the helicopter. “Goats Addicted to Human Urine Airlifted Out of National Park” variations of this headline spread around the world as news outlets picked up the story of Olympic’s mountain goat translocation in September 2018. In their native range, mountain goats are irresistibly drawn to naturally salty minerals. But in the Olympic Mountains, where mountain goats are not native, there are no natural salt licks. In fact, the saltiest thing in the Olympics might be people! Human sweat and urine are salty, and whether it’s a trailside pit stop or a pair of sweaty socks hung up to dry, mountain goats crave salt. Hikers and park staff have reported numerous occasions when aggressive goats followed them for miles, approached them and even attacked.
Clearly, habituated mountain goats pose a danger to humans, which is not to be taken lightly. However, risk to human safety is not, on its own, a reason to remove a species from a national park. All wildlife is potentially dangerous. Because mountain goats are not a native species, their presence in the Olympics is at odds with the National Park Service mandate to manage ecosystems as closely as possible to a natural state. So this is a big deal and we were there to watch the balancing happening. So dang cool.
The view out the windshield continues to amaze!
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