One of the reasons for establishing Olympic National Park was to insure
“protection and preservation of interesting fauna, notably the rare
Roosevelt elk....” There are 54 species and subspecies of wild mammals
occupying their primitive homes on the Olympic Peninsula (Murray L.
Johnson and Sherry Johnson, _Check List of Mammals of the Olympic
Peninsula_). Probably all of these occur within the park. The wildlife
picture is not a static one, however, as natural disturbances, time, and
man bring changes in numbers, kinds, and distribution.
Climatic changes have greatly affected the animal life. There have been
periods of extreme cold and periods of warmth. At least four times the
ice-age glaciers advanced and melted back. When ice sheets moved down
from the north and extensive glaciers formed in the mountains, the
animals left. When the ice retreated, the animals returned. Not all
animal types were able to survive, so that some animals that once lived
in Washington are now extinct. One of these was the mastodon, resembling
the present-day elephant. In 1950, a fossil skeleton of a mastodon was
found in an excavation on a farm near Port Angeles, and tusks and parts
of skeletons have been found from time to time in the bluffs east of
Port Angeles.
Because the Olympic Mountains are isolated from other mountains, some
animals of the Pacific Northwest have never found their way to the park.
For instance, several kinds of animals in the Cascade Mountains are
unknown in the Olympics. These include the mantled ground squirrel, pika
or cony, and red fox. The wolverine, now rare in the Cascades, has never
been seen in the Olympics. But animals move about, and it is entirely
possible that there will be natural additions to the Olympic fauna. Dr.
Victor B. Scheffer has stated that the red fox and the porcupine are
expected to invade the Peninsula sometime in the present century. During
1951, two porcupines were seen on the Peninsula near the ocean—one at
Kalaloch and another south of Queets Village.
Other changes have been brought about directly or indirectly by man. The
Olympic wolf—a big, gray, magnificent animal—was once fairly numerous,
but, because of merciless poisoning and hunting before the park was
established, it is now probably extinct.
The coyote, renowned for his ability to survive civilization, has
invaded the Olympic Peninsula during the present century. To some extent
this animal fills the ecologic niche left vacant by the disappearance of
the Olympic wolf.
Long before the National Park was established, mountain goats were
brought from British Columbia and Alaska and released on Mount Storm
King, near Lake Crescent. The transplanted animals have thrived and
multiplied, and have spread eastward across the park.