The team studied goats in the park along with another population 1,000 km south completely non-invasively, by filming them using telephoto lenses and counting the number of flank movements per 15-second time interval to calculate respiration rate, as well as the number of ear-flicks per 15-second time interval to measure insect disturbance.
A bighorn sheep’s rack of curled horns can weigh 30 pounds. A mountain goat’s slender black horns might weigh a pound apiece. Guess who wins the fight?
As climate change causes glaciers to melt, two high-climbing species are competing over who gets to lick up all the nutritious salt deposits left in their wake.
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A new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Colorado State University, and the National Park Service indicates previously unknown high altitude contests between two of America's most sensational mammals – mountain goats and bighorn sheep – over access to minerals previously unavailable due to the past presence of glaciers which, now, are vanishing due to global warming.