For three consecutive summers, wildlife managers undertook a monumental task in Washington state's Olympic National Park. They captured mountain goats, blindfolded them, and airlifted them into the Cascade Range, aiming to bolster the goat population in a region where they once thrived. This ambitious project, running from 2018 to 2020, saw a total of 325 goats released into the Cascades.

Despite these efforts, the results have been disappointing. Most of the relocated goats that scientists were tracking have died. “We were disappointed survival was as low as we found it was,” said Rich Harris, a now-retired state wildlife biologist who led the translocation project.

Determining the exact number of surviving goats is challenging because not all of them were tracked. However, a study published in September revealed that the probability of a translocated goat surviving year-to-year was just 56%. Of the 217 translocated goats sampled, 165 had died by the end of 2022.

Wildlife biologists collaborating with tribal nations reported that they could only find a few living mountain goats from the tracked groups. The Everett Herald highlighted these findings, underscoring the grim survival rates.

The primary goal of this initiative was to rejuvenate the mountain goat population in the Cascades, where numbers had dwindled significantly due to overhunting. Simultaneously, the project aimed to eliminate the mountain goats from the Olympic Mountains, where they were not native and had caused harm to indigenous plant species. A hiker's fatal goring in 2010 by a goat that had grown too accustomed to humans further emphasized the need for their removal from the area.

However, the project's outcomes have highlighted the profound impact of climate change on the rugged alpine landscapes of the West. It appears that even well-intentioned wildlife management efforts face increasing difficulties as extreme weather events become more common.

Captured mountain goats from Olympic National Park were delivered to staging areas before being moved to the Cascade Mountains. Despite anticipating some initial challenges for the relocated goats, the extent of the survival issues was unexpected. “You pick them up and drop them in unfamiliar territory, there’s initial trauma in the move. And finding your way in unfamiliar territory is going to be a challenge,” explained David Wallin, a professor of environmental sciences at Western Washington University.

Harris conducted a comparative analysis that included native mountain goats in the Cascades, revealing that their population is also declining. “While the translocated animals didn’t do very well, they didn’t do any differently than the native animals,” Harris noted. “It’s been a dramatic decline. Weather factors related to climate are having an effect.”

His study indicated that changing weather patterns linked to climate change have significantly affected mountain goat survival rates over the past two decades. Goats thrive with a cool spring and steady snowmelt, which sustains alpine meadows through summer. However, recent years have brought deep snowfall, rapid spring melts, and arid summer droughts.

“The take-home message there is wow — I’m not sure how goats are going to be doing over the next decade, two or three,” Wallin remarked.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife monitors some of the state’s mountain goat populations. Estimates from regularly surveyed goats fell from 1,537 in 2015 to 917 in 2022, indicating fewer than 3,000 mountain goats in the state.

State, federal, and tribal biologists spent years planning the relocation, involving public persuasion and intricate logistics. The plan required capturing and relocating at least half of the Olympic goats to the Cascades, with those remaining to be culled. Helicopters were used over three summers to capture goats using leg-trapping nets or darts. The goats were then blindfolded, tranquilized, and transported.

Despite receiving veterinary care and being moved via refrigerated truck and ferry, six goats were euthanized, 23 died during capture, and three died in transit. Sixteen kids were sent to zoos. Most of the remaining goats in Olympic National Park were culled, totaling around 175 by the project’s end in 2022. Visitors reported only two credible sightings of mountain goats in the park last year.

Harris anticipated an initial struggle but hoped the survival rate would stabilize around 80-90%. Unfortunately, this did not happen. The goats were typically 3 to 7 years old, with life expectancies into their early teens. Many were fitted with GPS collars to monitor their locations.

Alpine environments are rapidly changing due to global warming, impacting species like mountain goats, marmots, pikas, and other mountain inhabitants. “They’re a good symbol of what’s going on,” said Patti Happe, a retired Olympic National Park wildlife biologist. “Climate change — it kind of threw us a bit of a curveball. I don’t think we thought it was going to be hitting us like this.”

Despite the disappointing results, project leaders do not view the effort as a failure. Happe noted that some relocated females were spotted with kids, suggesting potential reproduction and genetic diversity improvements.

“There is still hope for the goats,” said Harris. “Despite some of our disappointments, I don’t think we did the wrong thing at the end of the day. It might turn out to have been a helpful thing to do, but it’s not going to stop the climate from changing.”

CORRECTION (May 21, 2024, 10:53 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated estimates of Washington’s mountain goat population. The September study examined the population of goats that are regularly monitored in the state, not the state’s overall population.