Think Area 4 & 5 Type A is worth it

[BuzzH]

What science?...you mean your video of a goat and sheep occupying the same area?

If sheep "lose every time"...seems pretty odd to see them in the same video snippet. The sheep should all be dead by your "science" everywhere goats and sheep are in the same place.

Yet, that sure isn't reality...

 

[madtom]

I'd guess they coexisted alright before disease and other changes to habitat conditions affected them differently. If goats are less affected by any of these things they may have a competitive edge that they didn't use to.

I'll never claim to be a goat expert, but that's an idea from my section of the peanut gallery.

 

[BigHornRam]

What a load of crap...sheep and goats have occupied the same areas for thousands of years. All across AK, YT, BC, AB, MT...just to name a few.

Oh, and all the while with wolves present in a vast majority of the range of both sheep and goats.

They may share summer range, but not winter and summer range. The sheep and goats in the Tetons share the same range year round. That's what is unique about this particular situation. Wolves are not part of the problem here and shouldn't be drug into this discussion.

 

[BigHornRam]

Valerius Geist wrote a research paper on the displacement of Bighorns by Goats.
Goats beat Sheep every time.
When Goats, Sheep and wolves combined, the sheep lost big time.....





View attachment 103437

Can you provide a link to Val's research paper?

 

[JM77]

A very real scenerio of removing mountain goats, from in and around Grand Teton Park, is a future there with neither sheep or goats. Bighorns, in several areas of Wyoming with no goats, are struggling like those in GTNP; the Whiskey Mountain herd being the worst.

 

[BigHornRam]

A very real scenerio of removing mountain goats, from in and around Grand Teton Park, is a future there with neither sheep or goats. Bighorns, in several areas of Wyoming with no goats, are struggling like those in GTNP; the Whiskey Mountain herd being the worst.

If the Teton sheep herd does wink out, of which is a real possibility, the goats will move back in overtime from the nearby existing goat herds, and without competition from bighorn sheep sharing their range. That is the real scenario. Till then, I am in favor of removing the goats. (My opinion)