Contrails follow a plane as it passes by Mt. St. Helens last year.
When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it sent pyroclastic debris flows hurtling across the landscape in excess of 300 mph. Everything inside the blast zone was sheared and singed, and the North Fork Toutle River was buried 600 feet deep in places. Those forces wiped out untold numbers of wildlife, including an estimated 5,000 blacktail deer, 1,500 elk and all 15 mountain goats believed to inhabit the mountain at that time.
Mountain goats had historically been a key component to the lives of Cowlitz Tribe members, and although the eruption wiped out the small contingent of goats left on the mountain in 1980, the volcano was not responsible for their demise. Instead, westward expanding European settlers were to blame for that population evisceration.
Historically, the Cowlitz Tribe was known for curating prized blankets and yarn spun from the thick double wool coat of the area mountain goats. Those fibers insulate the goats against temperatures as low as negative 50 degrees F and winds as high as 100 mph.
The woven and spun goods of the Cowlitz Tribe were in great demand from tribes without access to mountain goats and they were traded to tribes across the Salish Sea and up into Canada.
Many tribes also raised what is now an extinct breed known as the Salish wool dog. The white furred, long-haired dogs were bred and raised in order to combine their hair with the valuable goat fiber for spinning on a fascinating and esoteric tool known as a spindle whorl.
By the late 1800s, though, westward migrating European Americans were putting a serious pinch on Washington’s mountain goats. Southwest Washington was advertised a sportsman’s paradise, and the slow reproducing mountain goats were all but wiped out across the entirety of the region.
In 1972 and 1973, four goats were brought in each year in an effort to repopulate Mount St. Helens. Those goats were brought in from the Olympic National Park, where they are a non-native species and that restocking effort was slow to take hold. Even those slim results were wiped out during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens when all 15 of the mountain’s estimated goats were killed.
Interestingly, the post-eruption recolonization of mountain goats on Mount St. Helens has taken place without any human interaction whatsoever, and the devastating effects of the blast are a big reason why. Mountain goats prefer sparse high alpine conditions, and the volcanic blast zone of Mount St. Helens created what Nathan Reynolds, an ecologist with the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, dubbed a “pseudo Alpine” area at about 2,000 feet. That elevation is much lower than typical alpine habitats but it is nonetheless devoid of forest canopy and the thick underbrush that can hide mountain goat predators like wolves, coyotes, cougars and bobcats.
According to Reynolds, that prime habitat seems to have led to a fertility resurgence in the mountain goats as well. While most mountain goats typically reproduce at a rate of one kid per nanny, per year, the new Mount St. Helens herd has begun to throw twins into the population.
Research efforts in 2014 and 2015 confirmed those growing suspicions of a thriving mountain goat population on Mount St. Helens. In 2014, biologists counted 65 goats, mostly located around the northern edge of the mountain and up in the Mount Margaret backcountry. Using slightly different techniques and a larger survey area that included much of the south slope, biologists counted 152 mountain goats in 2015.
Again, it is important to note that none of the new goats on Mount St. Helens have been shuttled in by humans. Instead, Reynolds explained that the word is out in goat country and the animals are hiking in from areas like Mount Adams, Goat Rocks and Silver Star Mountain. “They’ve finally reached an island of suitable habitat to them,” said Reynolds.
With the impressive resurgence of mountain goats in full swing, remnants of their travels are readily apparent around the mountain. That is especially during the summer months when bits of their snow white fleece can be found hanging from brush and brambles around the mountain. As such, the Cowlitz Tribe has recently resumed their practice of wool gathering.
“We’ve gathered a little bit of wool and we’re hoping to gather a little bit more,” said Reynolds, noting that a kitchen size plastic bag full of wool he presented on Wednesday represented many miles and hours of arduous gathering effort. “The hope is that we can gather enough wool in enough abundance that we can resume the traditional practices,” added Reynolds.
According to Reynolds, mountain goats can really hoof it too. Evidence of mountain goats inside the mountain crater was first observed in 2000 and since then goats have been spotted inside the crater with regularity. Reynolds also noted another goat that was tagged and seemed altogether content to call Mount Adams its home. After staying relatively stationary for about six months the goat suddenly went on the lam until it was located three days later alive and well along the Oregon Coast. That trek was particularly impressive to Reynolds who noted the sheer distance and populated terrain that the mountain goat would have had to travel. Besides that, “Do mountain goats swim across the Columbia River?” asked Reynolds. Apparently so.
Although the exact time frame and process for resumed and expanded mountain goat wool gathering by the Cowlitz Tribe is not clear to Reynolds at this time he is confident that the volcano inspired regeneration of mountain goat herds on and around Mount St. Helens is a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future. “I think they’re in a rich habitat,” explained Reynolds. And the 1980 eruption is the reason.
