Man killed by goat in Olympic National Park

This is an interesting story...I have been fairly close to mountain goats many times, but never personally seen aggressive behavior. Mountain sheep on the other hand can be very aggressive if you get too close to them..

Bob Boardman of Port Angeles, a devoted hiker, diabetes nurse and musician, was killed by a mountain goat on Klahhane Ridge on Saturday afternoon.

Boardman, 63, his wife, Susan Chadd, and their friend, Pat Willits, had gone for a day hike on the Switchback Trail to Klahhane Ridge, which is near Hurricane Ridge about 17 miles south of Port Angeles.

The three had stopped for lunch at an overlook when a goat appeared and moved toward them, said Jessica Baccus, who arrived on the scene at about 1:20 p.m.

Baccus, also out for a day hike with her husband and their children, saw Willits, her longtime friend, coming up the trail.

Willits told Baccus that when the goat had begun behaving aggressively, Boardman had urged her and Chadd to leave the scene.
More details here

Their response indicated that they were unprepared for any type of aggressive attacker. The goat is one of the least probable threats. My guess is they would have also had poor results from a dog, bear, lion, badger, moose, horney whitetail or Ted Bundy. Most will be consoled with the thought - "It won't happen to me."

I carry a Glock - minimum.

I'm thinking some 230-grain JHP's would have taken care of the goat. That sucks.

While ridge walking on my way to a 14'er (Gray's)I was approached by a goat. It stood up from lying on the grass. It wasn't moving quickly but had its head down and got within about 15' of me. My initial reaction was that it wanted its ears scratched but I reconsidered and bravely ran away.
("run" being only a concept of brisk departure at 13,000')
Fortunately the footing was tundra and even though it was steep I could open the distance effectively. He could have killed me with just a nudge to get me off balance and tumbling.

I've always wondered about that encounter and whether it was dangerous or not. I guess I know now.

The sidebar on that article said the park service personnel were familiar with that particular goat:

'Barb Maynes, park spokeswoman, said the ram was known for its aggressive behavior, including reports of it following people along the trails around Klahhane Ridge.

'The park had been monitoring the ram for "the last several years," she said.'

So, what happened here? Is the goat of an endangered variety? Is there a shortage of goats in the area? Or were the park people just being politically correct in not shooting the goat when they knew it was a potential danger?

As Teslinhiker said, they're not known for their aggressive nature, so most people wouldn't think it was a threat, as with the usual predators. And if it suddenly became a threat (as it did), what did the park people surmise the people were likely/able to do about it?

Once again, a group of people who should have known better failed to take the long view. It's always the knee-jerk response.

Sue

I'm OK with hunting for food and killing an animal in self-defense. However, I don't think it's right to set out to kill an animal just because some unequipped humans would like to frolic in the area. For those who want safety without having to think about survival, then I recommend Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California. Wear ample sunscreen and don't go on the rides. There's also the option of watching Animal Planet in your home while leaving the goat's territory alone.

So much for people thinking sheep are defenseless.

The BBC story says that the main injury, possibly the only one, was from being gored in the leg. Evidently it caught a major vessel. If someone had known to, and had enough on the ball to think to do it, a tourniquet might have kept him from bleeding out.

A male goat being territorial is entirely natural. Butting heads is just what they do to solve territorial disputes. Evidently the guy advanced attempting to shoo the goat away and 'protect his family'. Which is what you say when you really should have stepped off gracefully and in good time. The time to back off was when the the goat initially looked square at them and bowed up.

Manning up and facing off only works if the the goat doesn't call your bluff. Stepping up and facing off was goat behavior for 'I accept your challenge'. Male goats face off and ram each other as a way of life. Those goats can come in at 300 pounds and they are tough and strong. As befits an animal that runs up mountains as a way of life. Can't blame the goat because the ape descendant didn't know how to play the butt-heads game and got his leg in the way.

No, I don't think the Park Service did anything wrong. You can't cure stupid and asking them to Nurf the wilderness for you is silly. Wild animals are, by definition, wild and they have minds of their own and are potentially dangerous. A shame they had to shoot the goat. Sounds like the goat was just doing what goats do.

Art is correct on many points. Knowing and observing animal behavior is key. We will never know all the facts that occurred from this incident, however it is a safe bet that Art comments about confronting the goat contributed to the man being attacked and gored. It was drilled into my head almost a lifetime ago, the safest reaction to an close encounter with almost any animal is to back off and give the animal and you some space. 99.99% of the time this will work and human and animal will both live on.

The 2 photos of mine below illustrate the different behaviors I observed a couple of years ago in the Canadian Rockies.

The first photo here is a mountain goat which is the same species that attacked and gored the hiker.

In this particular case, the goat did not seem to care that we were close by (but not too close to cause a confrontation) and it simply walked past while keeping a wary on us. Notice the horns on the goat? It is easy to see how the goat was able to gore the hiker.


This mountain sheep on the other hand was quite aggressive even though he was a fair distance away. More then once he turned directly toward us with head lowered and feet dug in charge mode. Based on it's aggressive behavior, and keeping an extremely close eye on the sheep, we slowly backed away and down a small knoll out of eyesight. The sheep then came over the knoll and proceeded to stare us down while we cleared completely out of the area.

The goats are a non-native species introduced to the park by
hunters years ago. The park has relocated quite a few in the past.
Time to allow some hunts there it sounds like. Washington is a shall issue state, so if you pay your $60 and get a concealed carry license, you can take a weapon with you into that National Park for self defense it would seem.

It's especially sad since apparently he was a nurse. And according to MSN.com, a doctor attempted to treat him shortly after the attack. It's possible that the victim was in shock and was incapable of assisting in his own treatment and/or that he'd already lost too much blood for the doctor to stabilize him. But it may be more likely that applying a TQ didn't occur to anyone. It used to be that the prevailing dogma was that a TQ just showed the surgeon where to perform the amputation but recent military experience has shown that to be false. IIRC the new standard of care for massive hemmorage is application of a TQ, then the application of high-flow diesel. A proplerly applied TQ can be left on for up to eight hours (according to recent information) without harm to the limb. And of course, even in an extreme case I'd rather be alive and missing one leg than dead with both of them.

Would bear spray work on a goat?

I can't see why not. There are enough anecdotal stories of bear spray successfully being used on many different animals.

One thing about bear spray...and regardless of who or what you are spraying, you need to be of the sound and very quick mind to instantly deploy it and not freeze when the animal comes charging at you. Also the wind has to be in your favor which in the mountains, can be very unpredictable and can be either blowing toward you and or swirling around you. Once you come to the conclusion that you need to use the spray, you have mere seconds to react before it could be too late. Spray too soon, then you you could end up having a very bad day and the final outcome may not be in your favor...

I carry bear spray and would not hesitate to use it on any animal if I felt my life or another person's life was in danger.

That said, avoid putting yourself in that tight situation and you will have no problems, yet still be able to see and enjoy wildlife in their natural settings. On Saturday we were watching a female black bear with a cub born this year off in the distance. Mama bear knew we were close by but not a threat and other then the occasional sniff in the air, continued to feed away in the meadow totally ignoring us. Had we been ignorant in bear behavior and moved closer, then it could of been a totally different situation and outcome.

LOL.

As a point of reference, as I understand it, all mammals have receptors for capsaicin so it works on all of us.

Wild animals can do a lot of damage. A group of us got chased by a raccoon once. Nobody wanted to beat on it and we weren't in a rush so backing off was easy. It was pretty funny getting chased by an aggressive critter.

I once watched as a squirrel that was assumed to be dead woke up when the hunter picked it up. It started wiggling and ran up his arm. He was thrashing so much, and screaming like a girl, it was hard to tell who was doing what to who. It kind of looked like the squirrel ran around his head a couple of times. Big guy, better than 300 pounds and tall, a combat veteran, stymied by a squirrel. I near about hurt myself laughing. Took a considerable amount of snake-bite-remedy to take the edge off. The boy lost a lot of his enthusiasm for hunting tree rats.

It ends up that I knew this victim a bit, we have hiked around alot of the same trails above Port Angeles - there are places where hikers stop to chat and those where folks rush on by, the Olys seem to be one of those places where you talk and meet people, and I have talked with Bob Boardman a handful of times. I'm very sorry to hear what happened, may he rest in peace. My condolences to his wife, family and friends. He loved the outdoors, very much, and he loved his family as well. He was a good man.

The Seattle Times has a fair account of the attack by the goat, best I've seen so far - http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013189753_olympicpark18m.html. It sounds like even a tourniquet would not have made much of a difference. The goat was standing over him and couldn't be waved off for at least 15 minutes - another part of the account says first medical assistance couldn't begin for almost 50 minutes, by which time the victim had lost alot of blood and had no pulse. Its a first fatal attack by any type of animal in the Park, amazing to me given the number of black bears I've seen all over the place. I have always kept my distance from goats even when hiking partners do something insipid like sidle in for a close up picture. They are big, strong wild animals, prone to acting like wild animals. Now at least I'll have a reason to tell them to stop that crap.

Hey Izzy,Full-Grown Mountain Goats,Often tip the scale over 200lbs.,They are ALL Muscle,Horns,& Hooves,Can stop on a dime,Can Run Uphill at 35 MPH,&They can Jump Higher than 10',& Leap Even Further from a standstill,& Can Eat anything & Still survive, very well!They Live Higher up than,Most Birds do!They are Very Wild Animals!

Wow, that's sad & scary at the same time. I guess the only way he could have been saved with the TQ would have been if he'd have applied it himself, no mean feat with an angry goat hovering over you.

What happens is Mountain Goats in particular are attracted to the salt content in urine and often follow hikers for that reason.

Even a barnyard billy is something to respect.

"Violent behavior

Mountain Goats have an aggressive social structure. The goats often push and shove each other –sometimes falling off cliffs. Adults will sometimes lift smaller goats and toss them, although the victims usually manage to catch themselves.



In Alberta, biologists Francois Fournier and Marco Festa-Bianchet found that Mountain Goats have an average of 3-4 conflicts per goat, per hour, throughout the entire year –and 5 or 6 conflicts per hour are quite common! Bighorn Sheep, on the other hand, only experience conflict once every 2-3 hours during the mating season –despite their reputation for continually butting-heads.



Mountain goats do not butt heads. Instead they poke each other in the hindquarters or on the backside. As a result of this constant fighting, male mountain goats have developed an extra-thick layer of skin to protect their behinds.



Biologists think that this aggressive behavior among mountain goats encourages the herds to disperse. Small bands of half-a-dozen animals have a better chance of survival in harsh conditions where food is scarce."

http://www.angelfire.com/punk2/walktheplank/mountgoats.html

That's an XLNT photo of an Average sized Mountain Goat!Too bad we can't see his Hooves,because aside from using their Horns,They often use their Hooves to clear obstacles out of the way,or to actually Blaze a Trail in Rock formations!I've seen them standing on Ledges no bigger than 6"x6" on Sheer Vertical Faces,1000's of Feet Up!They Deserve plenty of Respect,Wherever You may find them!

It has to be pointed out that there are wounds to limbs that are not easy to put a tourniquet on. A major vessel that opened up too close to the trunk, or retract into the trunk, so that there is no way to get a tourniquet on ahead of it to stop the bleeding is problematic. Medics will, as a matter of course, cut their way through skin and muscle, hopefully in such a way as to limit permanent damage, to get to the bleeding vessel and tie it off.

In some situations using pressure points can be faster and more immediately effective than trying to use a tourniquet. In such cases it is necessary to have someone maintain pressure on the blood vessel until a cut-down can be preformed. Sometimes the victim and person maintaining pressure are best transported as a unit.

If he caught a horn in the groin the tear may have been too deep to get to by any conventional means outside a trauma center and vascular surgery. Such torn vessels tend to be large and under a lot of pressure. To the point that a tear can mean the person bleeds out in a matter of a very few minutes. Sever the femoral artery and you can bleed out in less than a minute.

Everyone can't be saved.