U.S. National Park Service staff are now in a maintenance phase of their campaign against Rocky Mountain goats, also known as Cordilleran goats, in Grand Teton National Park in northern North America. The goats are not native to the Teton Range, and park officials consider them an invasive species that disrupts the local ecological balance.
The problem began after Idaho brought the goats to the area in the 1970s for hunting. The herd spread over time and entered Grand Teton. By 2008, it had grown enough that the park first proposed eliminating it in 2013, when roughly 10 to 15 animals lived in the Teton Range. It then took nearly seven years to move the plan forward, and by the time the cull began in early 2020, the population had reached about 100.
Dozens of goats were then killed through targeted shooting from helicopters or by skilled armed hunters on the ground hired by the park service. Today, the estimate is that only a handful remain in Grand Teton. "We estimate that 7 to 8 goats remain in the southern part of Grand Teton National Park, although more may be hiding in remote canyons in the north, an area that is difficult to access and lacks regulated hiking trails," said Yvette Converse, head of science and resource management at the park.
Wyoming’s Fish and Game Department had previously carried out an aggressive hunt on the park’s western slopes, but it was stopped after no goats had been documented there for several years. Since 2024, the effort has officially been reduced to "maintenance," meaning there are no longer large-scale culls, only targeted action based on available budget and field reports to keep the population from rebounding. The goats are being removed because they compete with native bighorn sheep for scarce high-altitude food, can behave aggressively, and may carry diseases deadly to sheep. Park staff have also enlisted the public with signs asking visitors to report, photograph, and document any sightings of bighorn sheep or Rocky Mountain goats. Meanwhile, the native bighorn sheep remain locally vulnerable, with Wyoming officials finding only 80 in their latest survey, though DNA tests from feces suggest some animals may have been missed in aerial counts.
