{"id":113394,"date":"2015-04-08T15:21:29","date_gmt":"2015-04-08T21:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/climate-puts-goats-at-risk\/"},"modified":"2015-04-08T15:21:29","modified_gmt":"2015-04-08T21:21:29","slug":"climate-puts-goats-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/climate-puts-goats-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"Climate puts goats at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rising
Rising temperatures are threatening the habitat of the American mountain goat, such as this one seen on Colorado's Mount Huron.<\/span>Courtesy of Robert Shepherd\/Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 The American mountain goat has been called the greatest mountaineer the peaks ever have known, but now that high altitudes are warming \u2013 at a rate two to three times faster than the rest of the planet \u2013 the animals\u2019 future is less than certain.<\/p>\n

Bruce Smith, a wildlife biologist and author, spent three years studying the mountain goat and its habitat. He said the changing climate also is changing the rules of the game for animals that live on what he calls \u201cislands in the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey come down in the wintertime, because of snow, to lower winter ranges,\u201d he said. \u201cBut much of the year, they\u2019re in the subalpine and alpine zones \u2013 so, in a sense, they can\u2019t go any higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith said mountain goats\u2019 adaptations definitely are for cold weather, citing their striking, heavy, two-layered coats. Despite the intrinsic dangers that come from living on icy ledges, Smith noted that they have carved out their own special niche over time, even as they compete for limited food supplies with wolves, bears, cougars, wolverines and eagles.<\/p>\n

Smith has won two National Outdoor Book Awards for his book, Life on the Rocks: A Portrait of the American Mountain Goat. He said he wrote it to alert people to the challenges that alpine species face living atop a warming planet and to introduce what he sees as the most mysterious of North America\u2019s large mammals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always tell people even though mountain goats live at a pretty slow pace, if you spot one, spend some time watching it,\u201d he said. \u201cEventually, it will do something fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith got a chance to work alongside most of the large mammal species that roam the western United States during a 30-year career with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Biologist warns future uncertain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[188,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-dolores-star","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113394\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113394"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}