The upper Lynn Canal’s leading mountain goat researcher, who has spent the last 12 years collecting data and providing analysis to Haines officials during heliski discussions, left the Alaska Department of Fish and Game about three weeks ago.
Biologist Kevin White has been working on a long-term study that involves collaring, monitoring and mapping goat populations in Haines and Skagway. His research has helped guide local and federal management decisions, particularly with regard to heliskiing and summer helicopter tourism in the Lynn Canal as well as hunting.
Two of White’s biggest contributions were a sightability model to estimate mountain goat numbers based on surveys and a winter habitat map, said Division of Wildlife Conservation regional supervisor Tom Schumacher. Schumacher said the department likely won’t fill White’s position soon, although it intends to eventually.
Broadly, White’s work helped modernize mountain goat research across Southeast. His monitoring and modeling helped improve understanding of population dynamics, inform harvest management decisions and predict climate change impacts.
White called it “a difficult decision” to leave Fish and Game, where he worked for 23 years. “We go through life making decisions based on evaluating trade-offs, pros and cons of each decision, and as much as I had been dedicated and focused my life on doing wildlife research, it just came to the point where it was time for a change,” White said.
White said his research in Haines over the next year or two, if he had stayed at the department, would have mainly included conducting aerial surveys and monitoring radio-collared animals and population dynamics. With White’s absence, Fish and Game will continue to do surveys to monitor population size and manage hunting, Schumacher said, adding that “the map and the model (developed by White) are not going to change.”
White said he could still serve as a resource for the Haines community, where he has a cabin, even though he’ll no longer be actively involved with the state’s research in the borough.
“When I started in 2005 (on a mountain goat study between Juneau and Skagway), it had been over 10 years since anybody in the entire state had done a study on mountain goats involving radio-marked animals,” White said. “Part of it is that (mountain goats) don’t quite have the economic importance of moose or caribou, and part of it is that they’re just a really difficult species to work with. And we were able to kind of figure out how to do work safely and have the right kind of skill sets to do that.”
Most notably, White and fellow Fish and Game biologist Anthony Crupi created winter mountain goat and bear habitat maps in 2017 as part of separate years-long studies that officials have referenced during discussions about how to regulate heliskiing. The borough’s current heliski map was designed using the data and maps developed by White and Crupi.
“I think that creating those habitat maps was really a significant achievement,” White said.
In addition to providing insight to Haines officials, White’s research has helped guide U.S. Bureau of Land Management policy in Haines and Skagway. Heliskiing and summer helicopter tourism in Haines and Skagway occur on both locally managed and federal lands.
“I have expressed to the BLM and other collaborators, including my colleagues at Fish and Game, that I’m interested in following through on my ongoing collaborations and commitments to the extent possible. I don’t want to leave people hanging,” White said. “I still plan to stay engaged and hope to be a resource for the issue and (provide) knowledge about the species in the area.”
In recent years, White detected a decline in mountain goat numbers in the Takhinsha Range, prompting concerns from hunters, environmentalists and the Upper Lynn Canal Fish and Game Advisory Committee.
No studies have been done in the Lynn Canal on the effect of helicopters on mountain goat populations, although studies elsewhere suggest that helicopters cause stress in mountain goats and can negatively impact their behavior.
Schumacher said Fish and Game’s constitutional mandate is to manage hunting, not helicopters or heliski policy. The department provides scientific information, not policy recommendations, to land management authorities like the Haines Borough Assembly and Bureau of Land Management.