Posted on 10/17/2010 6:14:53 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A man was gored and killed in a rare attack by a mountain goat while hiking at national park popular with outdoor enthusiasts in the western US state of Washington, media reported on Sunday.
Robert Boardman, 63, was hiking with his wife and a friend in Olympic National Park on Saturday when he was attacked by the male goat, which witnesses said had been behaving aggressively, according to an article in the Peninsula Daily newspaper.
Boardman, an experienced hiker, was gored in the thigh while trying to shoo the ram away, according to the daily.
The newspaper said that a park ranger who was not on duty but who happened to be nearby shook a "safety blanket" at the goat, and pelted the animal with rocks to keep it at bay until help could arrive.
A short time later, a coast guard helicopter airlifted the injured man, who was unresponsive, to the hospital.
The daily said efforts to revive Boardman were not successful and he was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Park rangers eventually were able to shoot and kill the ram, park spokeswoman Barb Maynes told the newspaper.
The Peninsula Daily News reported that there are some 300 mountain goats in Olympic National Park, but said park officials knew of no similar such attacks on hikers.
Mr. Boardman would be alive today if he were actively practicing his 2nd Amendment rights.
I believe October is mating season. They act strange during that period. The Goat!
When I was a kid we had a pet Billy Goat. He was really mean.
He must have reminded to goat of someone...
Experienced hiker? Shoo the ram?
Isn’t that what every red blooded American boy wants. A pet billy goat that’s really mean?
The rangers are armed with safety blankets?
A good walking stick can make a difference.
I used one on a buffalo in Nepal a few years back and am still here to tell about it.
Is a hiker trying to ‘shoo’ a wild creature away, any smarter than a zoo tourist that enters the encosure?
Oops, except where encosure = = enclosure, like on my planet.
sounds like he bled out. Was any effort made to stem the bleeding - like a tourniquet?
(I take my dog - a 20 pound Shiba Inu - on walks down country roads, the less habitation and traffic the better. He may be small but he is fearless - well, almost.
He'll go after just about anything, no matter the size: big dogs, horses, the moose down back - he sets up up a barking, howling ruckus and tries to get at ‘em.
The other day, I decided to stray off the road, going off up a hillside into the woods, following a snowmobile path along high tension wires.
About 100 yards from the road, the dog hit on something. Without a sound, his tail unfurled into the danger signal - straight out - as he silently turned and dragged me for all his might back towards the road with a a few furtive glances over his shoulder.
Once back on the road, he was fine, so I walked him about another 100 yards on the road when I came to an open field on a hillside, accessible by a farm-road. Once again, I headed off up the hillside - parallel to the previous trail.
At the same distance in, in a straight line to the place he had hit on something before, he hit again, again silently turned tail and dragged back for the road.
By now, I was getting a bit nervous. Back to town, in talking with local snow mobilers and hunters, it was opined that he had hit upon either the territorial boundary of coyotes or mountain lion - or had picked up their presence...
I will continue walking him on the roads, but will curtail the ‘side trips’ - and will carry a sling pouch with a can of wasp spray. Why wasp spray? There was an article last week about a woman in Austen who asked the police dept what kind of pepper spray they recommended for protection.
They said ‘wasp spray’. The reasoning: wasp spray will shoot out much farther than pepper spray and much easier hit the target where it counts while with pepper spray, the perp - or animal - can get much closer to you before the spray will reach them - and even then, the spray stream is thin and hard to hit the target - the eyes.
I'm a great grandmother - I like the advantage the wasp
spray gives. I just wish it came in smaller cans ;o)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.