PORT ANGELES — A memorial service for a widely known man killed by a large mountain goat is expected to draws hundreds of people.
Bob Boardman, 63, who was gored in the thigh by the mountain goat’s sharp horns on Switchback Trail near Klahhane Ridge on Oct. 16, was an avid hiker, registered nurse and musician.
He was a diabetes educator at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles and had played his music with bands all over the North Olympic Peninsula.
He also did medical work for years for the Peninsula’s Lower Elwha Klallam and Makah tribes.
Before moving to Port Angeles in 1999, he lived for 25 years in Port Townsend.
The memorial service for him will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribal Center on the tribe’s reservation just west of Port Angeles.
His obituary is on Page C9 of today’s Peninsula Daily News.
A website, bobboardman.com, is devoted to Boardman.
An autopsy confirmed that Boardman died of exsanguination, meaning he bled to death, said Barb Maynes, Olympic National Park spokeswoman.
The goring was the first fatal animal attack in the national park’s 72-year history.
Witnesses said the mountain goat chased Boardman down the trail.
Hikers had reported for years of being challenged by an aggressive mountain goat on the park’s Klahhane Ridge, near where the attack occurred. The national park had posted warning signs.
The animal that killed Boardman was tracked down and shot by rangers.
Test results this week
A necropsy, or animal autopsy, was conducted Oct. 17 on the animal.
A report is expected this week.
Among other things, the necropsy might show whether the mountain goat had entered the rut, the fall mating season.
Maynes said mountain goats in the national park typically do not behave differently toward people during the rut, which peaks in mid-November.
But male mountain goats are known to exhibit “dominance displays” toward other males, challenging and intimidating their rivals.
The necropsy is also expected to reveal any signs of disease, such as rabies, or abnormalities of the central nervous system.
“We’re looking for anything that might predispose an animal to exhibiting such unusual behavior,” Maynes said.
She said nothing unusual was found in a visual investigation of the animal, which was about 4 feet tall and nearly 300 pounds.
“They took a huge range of tissue samples,” she said.
“They are being analyzed. That’s being done by a couple of different sources, which provide a double check of one another.”
Tissue analysis is being handled by a pathologist in Snohomish County and by National Park Service officials in Fort Collins, Colo.
Died as hero
Boardman died as a hero, warning off other hikers as the aggressive mountain goat closed in on him, according to another hiker on the Klahhane trail, Margaret Bangs.
Bangs, a Port Angeles physician, and others who were on the trail saw events leading up to the attack and following it but did not see the attack itself.
Other hikers said that after it gored Boardman, the mountain goat stood over Boardman as he lay motionless on the ground bleeding, staring at people trying to help before it finally moved away.
Mountain goats were introduced to the region in the 1920s, before Olympic National Park was established in 1938.
Park rangers are now patrolling trails around Klahhane Ridge, east of Hurricane Ridge and about 17 miles south of Port Angeles, looking for any other aggressive mountain goats and talking with hikers.
ONP Superintendent Karen Gustin said rangers want to make sure there are no other mountain goat attacks.
If other aggressive mountain goats are found, the park would first look at the option of removing them from the park, Maynes said.
