Robert H. Boardman set out on a hike Saturday with his wife and afriend on an Olympic National Park trail popular because it is short,beautiful and faithful to town.
The Port Angeles man never realized it.
Boardman, 63, died after trying to shoo away a mountain goat at thetop of Klahhane Ridge, about 4 miles northward of the Hurricane RidgeVisitor Center, National Park Service officials said Sunday.
He is believed to be the 1st soul to have died in an incidentinvolving an animal in the park, spokeswoman Barb Maynes said. Rangersfound and killed the animal, which was to be interpreted to Monroe for anecropsy, she said.
Accounts of the incident are murky.
The goat began acting aggressively when Boardman, his wife, SusanChadd, and their friend Pat Willits encountered the beast on the trail,according to an explanation in the Peninsula Daily News. Willits saidBoardman told them to lead back down the lead while he shooed the goataway.
Nobody saw the goat attack, but Willits said she and Boardman's wife heard him yell, the newspaper report said.
Other acquaintances - Jessica and Bill Baccus and their threechildren - were hiking the same trail. When they reached the saddle atthe top of the trail, they found Willits, frantic and cellphone in hand.Willits told them a mountain goat had attacked Boardman and that thegoat wouldn't let people get near him.
Boardman was lying motionless farther up the trail, about 100 feet away, while the creature stood over him, Jessica Baccus said.
"The mountain goat was terribly aggressive," she said. "It wouldn't move. It stared us down."
Bill Baccus, a park scientist, had his park radio and immediatelycalled a dispatcher. Because Baccus has spent a lot of time aroundmountain goats, he led the drive to try to entice the goat away fromBoardman.
Three people spread out on a slope, shouting and pelting theanimal with rocks, Jessica Baccus said. The goat, distracted by thereflective light of a hiker's silver space blanket, finally backed awayafter about 15 minutes.
Helicopter dispatched
The low song for help came in round 12:30 p.m. the park servicesaid, but Jessica Baccus, a previous park ranger trained in first aid,wasn't able to reach Boardman to render him CPR until 1:20 p.m. He had nopulse and had blood on one leg, she said. Another hiker, meanwhile, keptan eye on the goat, still nearby.
Soon after Baccus started trying to resuscitate Boardman, a localdoctor on a day hike came upon the radical and took over, she said.
The U.S. Coast Guard arrived about 20 minutes later with a helicopterto airlift Boardman out of the park. The disturbance of the helicopter scaredthe goat away, Baccus said.
Boardman was interpreted to Olympic Medical Centre in Port Angeles, where he was pronounced dead, the common service said.
A player of note
Boardman was an avid hiker and played guitar and mandolin forcontradances, a case of folk dance, up and refine the West Coast, familymembers said.
He too served as a diabetes educator at Olympic Medical Center andworked for many days as a harbour for the Makah and Lower Elwha Klallamtribes, according to the Peninsula Daily News. The musician helpedorganize community dances and once worked for The Leader newspaper inPort Townsend.
"He [Boardman] is a very visible extremity of the community here and much loved and respected," Baccus said.
About 300 goats live in the Olympic National Park, and rangers havebeen tracking eight or so that have acted aggressively toward hikers ontrails in the Hurricane Ridge area, sometimes following people on trailsor not getting out of the way when people approach, said Maynes, thepark spokeswoman.
Rangers have shot nonlethal firecrackers and beanbag rounds at theanimals, which are not native to the Olympic Mountains, to discouragethem from approaching people, Maynes said. The park service had aprogram to relocate some goats to the Cascades in the eighties in partbecause they were touching the terrain, but the population rebounded inthe 2000s.
Maynes said it is possible people have fed the animals. The OlympicMountains also don't naturally make a lot of salt, so goats and otheranimals, always on the search for it, sometimes are drawn to areas wherepeople urinate on rocks, she said.
Rangers advise staying at least 100 feet from goats.
"The fundamental fact is that wildlife is unpredictable, and that applies to all types of wildlife," Maynes said.
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