By Michael Howell
Wildlife expert and author Bruce Smith is coming to Hamilton this week to discuss his new award winning book, “Life on the Rocks: A Portrait of the American Goat.” The book, published in June 2014 by University Press of Colorado, recently won best book in both the Nature and Environment and in the Design and Artistic Merit categories of the National Outdoor Book Award Foundation’s (NOBA) annual competition. The NOBA is a non-profit, educational program, sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, and Idaho State University.
As the NOBA Foundation Chairman Ron Watters put it, “This double win represents the first time in the history of the National Outdoor Books that a title entered in two categories has won both. One peek inside this large format book, and you’ll see why. You’re immediately drawn to dramatic photographs of mountain goats perched on lofty cliffsides, photographs which hint at the enormous patience that author and photographer Bruce Smith had in trying to get close to these elusive subjects. From the very first page, Smith draws us into a unique world, one that few have ever seen, the high mountains and the resplendent white goats that have adapted to life there.”
“This is really a win for the mountain goats,” said Smith. “The recognition accorded the book will hopefully translate into more readers learning of the mountain goat’s story and the conservation challenges this remarkable animal and other alpine species face.”
According to Smith, with the parade of hot issues surrounding threatened and endangered species, land and resource development, and conflicting uses of public lands, the mountain goat has been left off the conservation radar screen. Living in its remote mountain strongholds, it perseveres out-of-sight, out-of-mind. Yet it is not without challenges to its long-term well-being. With so little written about the animal for a general readership, and with so few people having even seen a mountain goat, it’s not surprising that this charismatic cliff-walker has suffered from conservation neglect. Smith seeks to change that with the publication of “Life on the Rocks.”
“As a field biologist and photographer, I spent years among these most extraordinary mountaineers learning how mountain goats survive six-month-long winters and how they navigate canyon walls and crags ‘steeper than a cow’s face’, where missteps on icy ledges, thunderous avalanches, and even the animals’ own social strife threaten to plunge the shaggy cliff-dwellers to gravity’s graveyard far below,” said Smith.
The American mountain goat is one of the most elusive and least familiar species of hoofed mammals in North America. Confined to the remote and rugged mountains of the western United States and Canada, these extraordinary mountaineers are seldom seen or encountered, even by those who patiently study them.
“Despite the intrinsic dangers,” he said, “the mountain goat has carved out a niche where competition for food is limited, and wolves, bears, cougars, wolverines, and eagles meet their match as predators. Woven throughout the text are my experiences living in Montana’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area where my affection for the animal began.”
While living in the mountains with them, Smith was able to observe the animals’ amazing agility up close.
“Once I watched a goat climb to the top of a dizzying pinnacle and stand with all four feet together on a summit measuring only eight inches square,” said Smith. “Then he raised a hind foot, scratched behind an ear, and shook the dust from his white coat, as I looked on in wonder.”
Beyond a natural history primer, “Life on the Rocks” provides a continental perspective of the animal’s history and ongoing conservation challenges across the U.S. and Canadian West’s great mountain ranges. As a charismatic exemplar of out-of-sight, out-of-mind alpine species, the mountain goat illustrates how human enterprise and global warming are changing the rules of the game of survival for a biological community that lives on islands in the sky.
Smith spent most of his 30-year federal career managing wildlife populations on the Wind River Indian Reservation and the National Elk Refuge in Wyoming. His research has produced over 40 technical and popular papers and book chapters focused primarily on large mammal population ecology, diseases, migratory behavior, and predator-prey relationships.
After a combat tour with the US Marines in Vietnam, Bruce earned BS and MS degrees from the University of Montana. His Master’s research focused on winter ecology of mountain goats in Montana’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area. Halfway through his government career, he investigated population regulation of the Jackson elk herd in Wyoming for his doctoral degree from the University of Wyoming.
After leaving the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004, Bruce and his wife Diana moved to southwest Montana where he continues his conservation work and writing.
His first book, “Imperfect Pasture” (2004), records changes in the ecology of the National Elk Refuge during its 100-year history. “Wildlife on the Wind” (2010) is based on his four years working with the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Indian tribes. At their request, he catalogued the status of the reservation’s diverse wildlife and helped foster a landmark recovery of elk, deer, moose, bighorn sheep, and pronghorn antelope. “Where Elk Roam” (2011) chronicles his 22 years studying and managing Jackson Hole’s famous migratory elk herd.
Smith’s book contains 107 stunning photographs, some of which will be presented in a talk he will give on Saturday, May 7 at 7 p.m. at the Bitterroot River Inn in Hamilton. The presentation is free and open to the public. The event is being sponsored by the Friends of the Bitterroot, Bitterroot Cross Country Ski Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Montana Wildlife Federation, Selway-Bitterrroot Frank Church Foundation, and the U.S. Forest Service, Wilderness Watch.