The value of wildlife in North Idaho
CLARK FORK — In 2024, travelers from 18 states — as far north as Edmonton, as far east as Florida, and as far south as Hawaii — visited a remote North Idaho town of just 600 residents.
The attraction linking widespread tourists to Clark Fork: Scotchman Peak, a trail to the highpoint of the Cabinet Mountains, and the home to many mountain goats.
On the hike-sharing app AllTrails, some out-of-state explorers recount visits in the dead of winter, enduring miles of deep snow and steep terrain for a chance to see a goat at the summit.
“People from all over come to see them,” said Philip Hough, executive director of Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, a wilderness conservation nonprofit. “And they spend money all along the way. People will stop in Clark Fork for gas and groceries or dinner or the hotel, and they’ll stop in Sandpoint or in places like Hope for the Old Ice House Pizzeria.”
The economic and cultural value of all wildlife in Idaho, not just mountain goats, has been well-documented for over a century.
In the 1950s, Idaho Department of Fish and Game director Ross Leonard was outspoken of wildlife’s “aesthetic and recreational benefits to hunters, photographers and others who appreciate nature.
“Our mountain goats have many important values. Not only do they furnish sport for the hunter, but also pleasure for all those wildlife enthusiasts who enjoy observing these animals under natural conditions on their rugged mountain ranges,” he writes in the Forward of Dwight R. Smith’s 1955 wildlife booklet “Mountain Goat in Idaho.”
In the olden days, an encounter with the woolly wanderers on Scotchman Peak was a coin toss, Hough said. But nowadays, because the population has grown and the animals have become habituated to hikers, it’s almost a guarantee.
“It’s still not an absolute certainty you’ll see a mountain goat there,” he said. “But people derive great satisfaction from just knowing these places exist.”
The abundance of wildlife near Bonners Ferry is well documented in the memoirs of 19th-century German immigrant Albert Klockmann, who spent years in the rugged Selkirk Mountain wilderness searching for a fabled outcrop of immense silver and lead deposits, which he ultimately found and developed into the Continental Mine.
In the manuscripts of “The Klockmann Diary,” first published in the Bonners Ferry Herald in 1959, the frontiersman describes bands of caribou large enough to sustain a team of miners all winter with meat and pelts, frequent encounters with grizzly bears and timber wolves, herds of hundreds of deer, and a trout so enormous that a tall man had to carry it over his shoulder, tailfin still dragging on the ground, to be “butchered like an animal.”
Some creatures Klockmann mentions have not had the same success story as the mountain goat. Despite recent population recovery, grizzly bears remain listed as an endangered species. And in 2019, caribou went extinct in the contiguous U.S.
Idaho Conservation League director Brad Smith said as a teenager, a rare caribou sighting in the Selkirks inspired him to pursue a career in conservation.
“The loss of woodland caribou is probably one of the biggest tragedies in my career as a conservationist,” he said. “They’ve gone from abundance to scarcity to extinction in a matter of 100 years. It’s important to keep the story of caribou alive so we don’t repeat the same mistakes with grizzlies or mountain goats or the other species we have.”
To sustain the wildlife experiences in North Idaho that draw outdoor enthusiasts from across the U.S. and Canada, Hough said a persistent challenge will be the growth and development of cities and towns near wilderness areas.
"It's a responsibility we all have to acknowledge an increasingly large number of people impacting wildlife habitat," he said. "Hikers stay safe, goats stay wild, trails stay open."
The value of wildlife’s existence in North Idaho — whether seen or simply known to be here — is enough to draw visitors, if only for the chance to witness something unforgettable.
“Out early and walked into the clouds that obscured the views from the top,” posted an AllTrails user from Spokane, Wash. who hiked Scotchman Peak in September 2024. “Goats were not up early. I will come back!”
A mountain goat sunbathed on a rocky outcrop near Scotchman Peak June 7, 2025.