Hunters have until the end of the day on Feb. 18 to offer their input on Fish and Game’s newly proposed draft of its Mountain Goat Management Plan for 2019-24
The Mountain Goat Management Plan is a six-year document that guides the department in managing mountain goat populations and habitat statewide, and establishes specific strategies for each of Idaho’s 19 distinct populations of mountain goats.
The draft plan and a comment form are available on Fish and Game’s Mountain Goat Management Plan page. The final draft, which will factor in public comments, will be presented to the Fish and Game Commission for its consideration at its March 12-13 meeting in Boise.
The Mountain Goat Management Plan is broader in scope than the bi-annual season setting for mountain goats, which the commission approved in January for the 2019-20 hunting seasons. Management Plans provide the department with an over-arching framework to make season recommendations, and the new Mountain Goat Management Plan will help guide the season setting process in future years.
The department’s statewide mountain goat management direction in the proposed 2019-2024 plan includes:
- Providing maximum harvest opportunity while maintaining, or increasing, mountain goat populations
- Working with hunters to reduce harvest of nannies
- Increasing knowledge of mountain goat survival, recruitment, habitat use, genetics, and the impacts of disease, habitat changes, and recreational activities
- Improving the quality of mountain goat population monitoring data to better evaluate population trends
- Creating guidelines for mountain goat translocations in Idaho