Hundreds of mountain goats were flown to a new home. Very few survived.

For three summers, wildlife managers wrestled mountain goats in Washington state's Olympic National Park, blindfolded them, and then flew them to the far reaches of the state's Cascade Range - an ambitious project to boost the goat population in an area where they were once common. occurred.

The researchers released a total of 325 goats into the Cascades between 2018 and 2020.

Today, most of the goats scientists have tracked are dead.

"We were disappointed that the survival rates were as low as we found," said Rich Harris, a now-retired state biologist who led the translocation project.

It's difficult to ...