"There's not many goats that are in that coastal area, especially when you compare it to the interior populations like the Rocky Mountains," said Jessen, a PhD student at the University of Victoria and a scholar with the Raincoast Conservation Foundation.
Researchers also looked at British Columbia hunting records dating back to 1980, he said. The records showed hunters are less successful at hunting mountain goats now or that it takes them longer to find one.
"People would typically see them from the water on a boat while fishing or while working," he said. "You could just look up and you could see mountain goats on the cliffs in these coastal fiord systems. But not anymore."
A lack of baseline information means researchers weren't able to quantify the change in population, Jessen said.
