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Mountain Goat Gores Hiker to Death in Washington
http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/a...pic-national-park-wa/19678251?test=latestnews
(Oct. 18) -- A notoriously aggressive mountain goat attacked and killed a hiker in Washington's Olympic National Park.
Robert Boardman was picnicking Saturday at an overlook with his wife, Susan Chadd, and a friend, Pat Willits, when the goat appeared, according to the Peninsula Daily News. Boardman, 63, told his companions to move back down the trail while he tried to scare off the animal.
Instead, the goat charged Boardman, goring him in the leg with one of its horns. When Chadd and Willits heard him yell, they returned to the scene to find the goat guarding his body.
"The mountain goat was terribly aggressive," Jessica Baccus, an acquaintance of Boardman's who was also hiking the trail at the time, told The Seattle Times. "It wouldn't move. It stared us down."
Her husband, Bill Baccus, is a scientist at the park and immediately radioed for help. Three people then spread out across the slope and tried to shoo the animal away by yelling and throwing rocks at it. After about 15 minutes, it finally retreated. But by then, Boardman had been lying there for approximately an hour and no longer had a pulse.
Jessica Baccus began administering CPR, and 20 minutes later a Coast Guard helicopter airlifted Boardman out of the park and took him to the Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles, where he was pronounced dead.
Park rangers later shot and killed the goat, and a necropsy will be performed on the animal's body to test for disease.
Rangers have been tracking about eight of the 300 mountain goats that live in the park -- including this one -- because they had been acting aggressively toward hikers lately, either by not moving out of the way when people approached or by following them.
In an attempt to condition the goats to stay away from humans, rangers have shot bean bags and non-lethal firecrackers at them in the past, The Seattle Times notes.
http://www.aolnews.com/surge-desk/a...pic-national-park-wa/19678251?test=latestnews
(Oct. 18) -- A notoriously aggressive mountain goat attacked and killed a hiker in Washington's Olympic National Park.
Robert Boardman was picnicking Saturday at an overlook with his wife, Susan Chadd, and a friend, Pat Willits, when the goat appeared, according to the Peninsula Daily News. Boardman, 63, told his companions to move back down the trail while he tried to scare off the animal.
Instead, the goat charged Boardman, goring him in the leg with one of its horns. When Chadd and Willits heard him yell, they returned to the scene to find the goat guarding his body.
"The mountain goat was terribly aggressive," Jessica Baccus, an acquaintance of Boardman's who was also hiking the trail at the time, told The Seattle Times. "It wouldn't move. It stared us down."
Her husband, Bill Baccus, is a scientist at the park and immediately radioed for help. Three people then spread out across the slope and tried to shoo the animal away by yelling and throwing rocks at it. After about 15 minutes, it finally retreated. But by then, Boardman had been lying there for approximately an hour and no longer had a pulse.
Jessica Baccus began administering CPR, and 20 minutes later a Coast Guard helicopter airlifted Boardman out of the park and took him to the Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles, where he was pronounced dead.
Park rangers later shot and killed the goat, and a necropsy will be performed on the animal's body to test for disease.
Rangers have been tracking about eight of the 300 mountain goats that live in the park -- including this one -- because they had been acting aggressively toward hikers lately, either by not moving out of the way when people approached or by following them.
In an attempt to condition the goats to stay away from humans, rangers have shot bean bags and non-lethal firecrackers at them in the past, The Seattle Times notes.
