These mountain goat kids lost their mothers but now have a new home at wildlife park

Five young mountain goats removed from Olympic National Park were introduced into their new home Tuesday at Northwest Trek Wildlife Park in Eatonville.

The young goats, called kids, were some of the nearly 100 mountain goats captured on the Olympic Peninsula in October. Most were relocated to the North Cascades

The five goats couldn’t be paired with a nanny (mother goat) during the relocation process, Northwest Trek officials said.

The 435-acre free-roaming area in the park with its meadows, forests and rocky hillsides will be home for four of the kids. A fifth will eventually be taken to another zoo. One other kid was sent to Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

During the capture process, some of the kids’ mothers died or were separated to a degree that they couldn’t be paired up again.

Officials are trying to capture as many goats as they can on the Olympic Peninsula and use them to boost depleted populations in the North Cascades where they are natives.

The goats were introduced to the Olympics by a hunting group and now cause environmental damage. One even killed a hiker in 2010.

Goats that can’t be captured will be eventually be shot beginning in 2020 to eliminate the entire population in the Olympics.

This story was originally published November 13, 2018 at 5:54 PM with the headline "These mountain goat kids lost their mothers but now have a new home at wildlife park."