Read an Excerpt
Life on the Rocks
A Portrait of the American Mountain Goat
By Bruce L. Smith University Press of Colorado
Copyright © 2014 Bruce L. Smith
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-60732-292-4
CHAPTER 1
Beginnings
From American Indians, the Corps of Discovery first heard about a white beast that dwelt among the peaks. They marveled at the shaggy hide purchased from Chinookan Indians along the Columbia River. In 1805 Captain William Clark even glimpsed a live one, albeit at a great distance, near what now is the Idaho- Montana border.
In 1778 Captain James Cook recorded the earliest hint of the creature's existence. During stops at British Columbia and Alaskan villages on his around-the-world voyage, he was struck by the spun wool garments worn by the natives. When the Indians pointed out white animals perched high on the rocks as the source of the garments' wool, Cook called them polar bears.
Others have confused the animal with mountain sheep, which also occupy the continent's western mountains. Indeed the English translation of the mountain goat's taxonomic genus, Oreamnos, suggests as much — lamb of the mountains.
Still others reckoned the beast bearing a shoulder hump and simple black horns as a new variety of a familiar species. In 1798, Alexander McKenzie described the animal he spotted in the mountains near the McKenzie River as a white buffalo. Although albino bison do exist, McKenzie's arctic animal was likely the mountain goat.
It's not hard to imagine how the early explorers, trappers, and fortune-seekers might find the notion of a white buffalo roaming the mountaintops as much reality as phantom or fable. Some 25–50 million bison once roamed the continent and were well known to most who ventured west. Even in fiction, the taxonomy of this stout-shouldered creature was enigmatic. A passage from The Big Sky, Pulitzer prize-winning author A. B. Guthrie's yarn about the mountain men of Montana, describes the mountain goat this way:
It ain't a buffler proper, nor a white antelope, neither, though you hear the name put to it and a sight of others. They keep to the high peaks, they do, the tip top of mountains, in the clouds and snow. ... Not many's seen a live one. A man has to climb some for that.
Native people of North America's First Nations, of course, had known the animal for centuries. Some hunted them for food, ceremonial items, and clothing. But well into the twentieth century, these wilderness cliff-walkers were relatively untouched by the westward march of Euro-Americans. It was an animal more of myth and mystery than avarice, and thus it escaped the tsunami of exploitation suffered by the more easily targeted bison, pronghorn, deer, elk, and the goat's mountain cousin the bighorn sheep.
Along with its closest relatives that inhabit European and Asian peaks, the mountain goat completes a distinct taxonomic grouping, the Rupicaprini Tribe (Rupes = rock, capra = goat), within the sheep, goat, antelope, and cattle family (the Bovidae). The rupicaprids are regarded as goat-antelopes, possessing traits of both true goats and antelopes but are neither. Characteristic of the mountain goat and its relations — and distinguishing those species from other members of the Bovidae family — are their thin-boned and fragile skulls, and short, dagger-like horns that look similar in both sexes.
The mountain goat's rupicaprid relatives are the mysterious gorals and serows of Asia, and the chamois of Europe. The total number of species depends upon which taxonomist you ask, but there may be as many as four species of goral and between three and six species of serows (see Walker's Mammals of the World and Mammal Species of the World for species accounts). Most authorities agree on two species of chamois — Rupicapra pyrenaica of the Pyrenees and Apennine Mountains of France, Spain, and Italy, and the more abundant Rupicapra rupicapra of the Alps, the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Caucasus.
The gorals (all of the genus Naemorhedus) are the most primitive rupicaprids and likely the most similar in appearance to the ancestral form that gave rise to the modern tribal descendants. The gorals are grayish or reddish, coarse-haired, short-horned, and most weigh fifty to seventy-five pounds as adults. The species' geographic range includes mountainous regions of eastern Russia and China, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, and possibly Laos. A population of the species called the long- tailed goral occupies the demilitarized zone of the Korean Peninsula.
Also resident to Asian mountains and ranging from Siberia south across the Himalayan region through Myanmar and Thailand to Malaya and Sumatra are the serows, all of the genus Capricornis. Resembling robust versions of gorals, they weigh up to 200 pounds and are reddish brown to gray-brown in color. Leading even more secretive lives than the gorals, the serows inhabit steep hillsides cloaked in dense vegetation. Isolated when the Japanese archipelago broke from the Asian mainland, the Japanese serow is perhaps the best known of the serows and gorals, which are among the least studied of the world's large mammals. Historic ranges of gorals and serows have been reduced by excessive hunting and habitat loss. Several species are now considered in danger of extinction.
The chamois, on the other hand, is the best known and studied among this small group of mountain dwellers. Easily the fleetest of the bunch and a prodigious leaper, the chamois is longer-legged and slimmer than other rupicaprids. Adults weigh seventy-five to one hundred pounds, are tawny to reddish brown in color with distinctive white markings, and are more gregarious than the gorals and serows of Asia.
The rupicaprids likely evolved in the Himalayan Plateau region and are considered to be more primitive than — seeming living ancestors of — the true goats and sheep. Their origins date back to the late Miocene Epoch and the tribe diversified into many species during the Pleistocene (0.1–1.8 million years ago), though most did not outlive the ice ages.
From the most northerly distribution of the modern-day serow and goral, the ancestral mountain goat crossed to the New World via the Bering Land Bridge during the Pleistocene — perhaps 40,000 or more years ago, when ocean levels were 300 feet lower than today. Molecular studies suggest a closer relationship between the mountain goat and another immigrant, the musk ox (Ovibos moschatus), than other North American large mammals. Yet America's goat-antelope resembles no other beast of either the New or Old World. It's an evolutionary novelty, one of a kind.
In short, the mountain goat is a mountain-dwelling ruminant, physically adapted for rock climbing and surviving arctic alpine weather. Although commonly called the Rocky Mountain goat, I prefer American mountain goat (or just mountain goat) because Oreamnos americanus inhabits the Cascade and Coast mountain ranges of North America, as well as the Rocky Mountain chain.
Now extinct but known from fossils found in caves of the American Southwest, the smaller Oreamnos harringtoni is the only other recognized past or present member of the mountain goat's genus. Fossil evidence suggests that during the massive Wisconsin Glaciation, both species of mountain goats survived only south of the continental ice sheet, even as far south as California and northern Mexico. Yet recent DNA analyses indicate that the coasts of northern British Columbia and southern Alaska provided additional refugia in which goats persisted until the Pleistocene ice melted away.
The periglacial conditions that shaped Oreamnos americanus are what the species remains best adapted to today. It's found from southern Alaska to the western Northwest Territories and southward through Canada to Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Beyond this distribution of native populations, new herds have been established by transplanting animals to Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, eastern Idaho, central Montana, the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, several Alaskan islands, and even beneath the granite gaze of four presidents in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
CHAPTER 2
How to Build a Goat
The mountain goat is defined by the suite of traits that permit it to defy gravity twelve months a year. Specialization starts with the feet. The hard outer walls of the hooves surround a rough yet pliable, convex pad. The animal world's equivalent of studded tires, the hoof pads conform to rock surfaces providing positraction. The four "toes" (digits two and three comprising the cloven hoof, and digits one and four being the elevated "dew claws" on the rear of the foot) are oversized — a feature that affords a larger gripping surface and distributes the foot load for increased support on snow. The cloven hoof is more flexible than in other ungulates. As the goat descends a rocky face or steep snowfield, the toes spread apart improving balance and providing friction in an outward as well as downward direction. During descents, the goat lowers his hind quarters to bring the large dew claws into contact with rock and snow, increasing traction and control.
His overall build includes short, stocky legs set relatively close together, and a compact torso with the forequarters decidedly larger than the rear (a la McKenzie and Guthrie's "white buffler"). The heavily muscled shoulders and forelegs help him trudge through deep snow. A compact body provides a low center of gravity, balance, and uncanny agility on narrow ledges that vanish into thin air. When startled he may trot or lope, but this is not an animal built for speed.
Although nimble in the mountains by hoofed animal standards, North America's Dall, Stone, and bighorn sheep (collectively called mountain sheep) possess neither the physical adaptations nor the raw ability of the mountain goat on cliffs and crags. While sheep bound crisply across outcrops and slopes, the goat is a plodder and inclined to stick to steeper terrain. Leverage, friction, and balance are the tools of his trade. The sheep are free-climbing scramblers; the goat is a technician.
I've watched a goat climb to the top of a dizzying pinnacle and stand with all four feet together on a summit measuring only eight inches square. Then he raised a hind foot, scratched behind an ear, and shook the dust from his coat, unimpressed with the feat as I looked on in wonder.
The goat's outward appearance is marked by an extravagant robe of white. It's from late fall into spring that he looks his most elegant, highlighted by a full beard, pantaloons that resemble baggy basketball shorts, and a dorsal ridge of hair that when backlit casts a radiant halo befitting a beast living so close to the heavens. This outer pelage of five- to seven-inch-long guard hair sheds wind and snow and protects a dense insulating mantle of underfur (goats patented the concept of layering for warmth!) as luxurious as the finest cashmere. To my eye, they are among the most photogenic of subjects.
From May into August, goats metamorphose from this shaggy beast of winter into trimmer summer attire. Often last to shed is the guard hair of the pantaloons, scraggly remnants under the belly, and a goatee wisp of beard. With a fresh half-inch of wool adorning the rest of the body, the American mountain goat looks far from chic, if not comical, as the molt progresses. Only the Dall sheep of the far north shares an all white coat among ungulates. But unlike the goat, the sheep's closely cropped summer appearance changes little during winter.
When the goats began to shed their too-warm-for-summer dress in spring, indigenous peoples from Alaska to Washington plucked tufts of this fur found snagged on bushes. After twisting the wool into yarn, they wove blankets and garments prized for their beauty, comfort, and warmth.
The white coat reflects solar radiation, enabling goats to feed on exposed terrain, rather than seeking the coolness of forests in summer. Still, on August afternoons, they may retreat to the shade of cliffs or lounge on remnant snowfields to better thermoregulate and ease the aggravation of insect pests.
The color of the coat is not truly white, but a buttery ivory that contrasts with the snow, particularly when glistening in sunlight. Still, spotting these cliff-dwellers is challenging on a mountainside smothered or patchily covered in snow. Amid driving rain, snow squalls, and wind-driven graupel (all too common conditions on goat ranges), goats can vanish like ghosts in a fog.
Because his coat is not waterproof, the lee side of outcrops, overhangs, and caves offer refuge during particularly wet weather. Goat caves I've found in Montana's Bitterroot Range and in Glacier National Park were carpeted with a layer of decomposing dung.
Finally, this creamy attire is highlighted by a coal black nose, eyes, and dagger-like horns measuring eight to eleven inches long in adults. The horns are neither the spiraled variety of true goats, nor the dramatically curled and flared horns of mountain sheep. Still they serve as formidable weapons when the head is lowered to face any would-be attacker. They also constitute a prodigious reinforcement of an animal's rank in the mountain goat's social hierarchy. I'll return to this subject in the next chapter.
A finely tuned specialist, America's goat-antelope inhabits a realm where the vertical dimension supersedes all others. My persistently cocked head and uplifted binoculars attested to that. Although equipped with magnificent physical adaptations, the mental game is where goats may best excel. That became what I most admired during countless days watching these cliff walkers negotiate their vertical world.
Rock climbing requires a combination of strength, skill, and confidence (can-do attitude). To successfully spend a ten- to twelve-year life span on cliffs requires one other ingredient: patience. Natural selection and diligent parental training have given the mountain goat remarkable patience. Goats choose their routes. Their climbing is methodical, even painstaking. They are not averse to abandoning a route and seeking an alternative should the footing turn treacherous. Goats can perform "walk-overs" when a cliff ledge narrows to nothingness. A quick lurch to position his forefeet against the cliff face, followed by walking the feet above the head across the rock, and he's ambling back along the ledge nibbling sedges and groundsels.
While studying mountain goats in Montana's Bitterroot Mountains, again and again I was amazed by their patience. High on the cliffs one winter day, I stalked a nanny I wanted to immobilize with my dart gun and then radio-collar. I planned my stalk from the canyon bottom to the ledge where she was feeding, some 1,000 feet of elevation above me. An hour later, she and I met on the ledge. Startled, she bounded out of sight before I could get off a shot. I waited several minutes and then followed. Just beyond an angle in the cliff where the ledge ended in a seventy-five-foot vertical drop, she stood facing me. I couldn't immobilize her there for fear she would plummet from the ledge when she lost control of her limbs. So I retreated some fifty yards and sat, dart gun ready, behind a boulder. Surely she would retrace her steps and I'd dart her as she passed by. Three hours later, with the sun sinking into Idaho, my hands and feet numb, and my patience played out, she remained at the same location. I bid her good night before descending in the twilight. The next morning I spotted her grazing near the boulder where I had waited.
I was once asked: if I could come back to this world as an animal, what kind would I choose? "If you mean a mammal," I replied, "I'd be a mountain goat." Besides being able to survive in those spectacular surroundings, I'd prize being granted that kind of patience.
CHAPTER 3
Behaving Appropriately
The mountain goat is one of the ruminants — the even-toed, hoofed mammals with complex stomachs where food is fermented by bacteria and protozoans to wring sparse nutrients from plants. Their digestive efficiency permits mountain goats to eat a variety of fibrous plants in winter when the availability of nutritious green forage is limited in temperate and subarctic regions. Although a specialist in many ways, the goat is a generalist in diet. Like most adaptations, this is a behavioral trait borne of necessity.
During much of the year — November into May — snow suffocates their world. On canyon walls, where cliffs and crags face a southerly slanting sun, goats search the ledges and slopes for sparse patches of food. Winter after winter they repeatedly graze and browse plants at the windward edges of ledges, where snow depths are shallower.
The specific composition of their catholic diet varies with snow depth, with stage of growth or curing of each plant, and with plant composition across the mountain goat's continental range. Like wooly veg-o-matics, they paw through snow for grasses and sedges, nibble mosses and lichens from rocks, strip twigs from shrubs and trees, and sometimes dig the rhizomes of ground-hugging plants. On some Rocky Mountain ranges of Colorado and elsewhere, wind sweeps the snow from shreds of tall ridges, and goats may outlast winter nibbling on dwarfed alpine plants at sky-scraping elevations. In Alaska and British Columbia's coastal ranges — where snow piles higher than a house — goats descend far down the mountains (even to the seashore) and strip lichens from ancient trees in the dark depths of winter. Wherever they roam, mountain goats make do with what they can find. Winter is a period of energy conservation and waiting — waiting for the season of renewal, waiting for spring.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Life on the Rocks by Bruce L. Smith. Copyright © 2014 Bruce L. Smith. Excerpted by permission of University Press of Colorado.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
