Con Group asks USFS to remove goats from La Sals

[tallbuck1]

Did you guys hear?


http://www.moabtimes.com/view/full_...rom-La-Sals?instance=secondary_one_leftcolumn



Tallbuck1

 

[SHEDYGAGA]

Same problem you have with goats on other ranges.

Forrest service limits the DWR to only have 160 goats on willards forrest service ground.

But, the goats spread so far, and so fast, they have spread all the way south of weber canyon, north to mount naomi and between.

Last year the DWR had to remove an additional 40 goats from willard, thats on top of the 32 tags they issued in 2014.
This year, they are forced to remove another 40 goats.

The 40 they removed last year were sold to South Dakota.
I do not know the future destination of the 40 goats that will be sold this year.

All because the forrest service limits the number of goats that you can have on the land.

Thats 80 once in a lifetime goat tags being sold out from under you in the last two years.

Its a double edge sword.
If the forrest service said flat out, NO. No introduction number is acceptable, none of us would get to hunt goat. 160 is better than zero.

But goats wander. They are insane movers. They expand like crazy.
Great for us, until they wander into a place they are not wanted.

Too bad they are not wanted. Too bad that when they are not wanted, they are sold rather than hunted.

Hopefully some one over there will talk some sense into the forrest service and they will agree to allow a number of goats to stay. Even if its a smaller number.

The only way to fix this problem is to prove that goats were native to the area. So far, no one has been able to do it. If they are a native species, the forrest service cant say squat about the population numbers. Just like deer and elk.

 

[travishunter3006]

Why not just let hunters control the numbers?

 

[nebo12000]

LAST EDITED ON Jul-06-15 AT 09:17AM (MST)[p]IF I remember correctly, when the introduction of the goats were being contemplated, the FS was against the transplant. There is no historical evidence that can be found for goats but there is plenty of evidence for Big Horn sheep. However, the consensus was that putting Big Horn sheep there would ultimately fail because of the presence of domestic sheep. Some of the environmental folks opposed the introduction because of the perceived danger to a certain type of flower that they believed could be destroyed because of the goats grazing on it. The information that was provided showed that the grazing habits of Big Horn sheep and goats overlapped by 95%. The assumption made was that the flower survived very well the grazing by Big Horn until they were eliminated from the landscape so why wouldn't they be just fine if grazed by goats. The group also indicated that they would support the reintroduction of Big Horn and the elimination of all grazing by domestic cattle and sheep. I kind of felt like that they were really wanting to find some leverage to remove domestic grazing from the mountain.