Urine, sweat and antifreeze: The story of Logan Pass goats

Hike the Hidden Lake Overlook Trail in Glacier National Park during the summer and you're almost assured to see a mountain goat.

The region is excellent goat habitat, notes University of Montana biologist and researcher Wesley Sarmento. But the goats are also drawn there for another big reason: Salt.

Sarmento currently has 22 goats fitted with radio collars from the Logan Pass area as part of a three-year-study of the iconic creatures.

Most mammals in Glacier, including mountain goats, are salt deficient. Nannies need minerals and salts for milk production and hair, bone and horn growth. The lush green alpine plants they eat is low in natural mineral content.

In a normal mountain goat environment, they'd travel to natural mineral licks - limestone deposits in the soil. Goats and other ungulates have been known to travel for miles to get to these places, taught the routes by hundreds of years of generations of furry kin.

But at Logan Pass, the goats increasingly have been getting their salt from a completely unnatural source - human sweat, urine and car antifreeze.

This summer the Park estimates that about 1,300 people a day hike the Hidden Lake Trail and at least some of those people have to pee in the bushes. Human urine is high in salt. The salt, in turn, attracts the goats.

Sarmento's study tracked the goats and found they were keying in on Logan Pass urine and sweat. The Logan Pass goats traveled more than goats going to mineral licks. A goat going to a mineral lick might stay there a few days or weeks, enough to replenish its body's need for salt. But a goat at Logan Pass is moving more, visiting multiple spots of urine or sweat to fulfill its salt needs, preliminary results from his study have found.

The Logan Pass goats are making short journeys, however, but a natural lick is a much longer undertaking, exposing the goats to predators.

In addition, the Logan Pass goats appear to be using the presence of humans as a shield against predators. Sarmento tested this theory by visiting remote goat licks that are away from people. There, he found far more evidence of predation - goat bones and remains.

But at Logan Pass, no carcasses were found.

He also found that goats at Logan Pass are more brazen, they travel much farther away from escape cliffs than wild goats in more remote regions of Glacier do.

Researchers even donned outfits that made them look like grizzly bears. When they approached the wild goats, the goats ran away. The goats at Logan Pass were far less likely to flee.

"It appears people are providing a safe zone," he said.

The goats at Logan Pass have learned over the years the dual benefits of humans. Perhaps one of the most telling parts of the study to date came completely by accident, however. The Reynolds Creek Fire closed Logan Pass to humans for more than a week while it cooked the east side of the Sun Road.

Sarmento's study found that when the people were gone, the goats didn't hang around. They had no protection and no fresh salt.

"What we saw was the goats reduced their use of the area," he said.

How healthy all of this is for goats remains to be seen. There is evidence to suggest the Logan Pass goats may be foregoing natural migration patterns to mineral licks in favor of human salt. Another big problem is the goats simply get too close to people. The Park regulations call for people to get no closer than 25 yards to goats and other like animals.

But the goats at the Hidden Lake Trail lay down in the trail itself and lick salt off the boardwalk, despite the Park's best efforts. Goats have very sharp horns.

While no one has been gored in Glacier, in Olympic National Park a man was killed by an aggressive billy goat. One possible solution is to urge people to shoo away the goats, but everyone would have to buy into that, Sarmento noted. Olympic hired full time staffers to haze goats, but that didn't work. As soon as they left, the goats returned.

Another possible solution is a toilet at the Overlook, but that would take dozens of overflights a summer via helicopter to remove the waste, another distasteful solution.

Sarmento's study, in cooperation with the Park and supervisory biologist Mark Biel, and noted biologist Joel Berger, is ongoing and will wrap up next year. He's interested in hearing from anyone who finds a goat carcass.

His email is wesley1.sarmento@umontana.edu.

Results from the study will be used in helping craft a Sun Road Corridor General Management plan - a long-term vision for the entire Sun Road corridor.