Growing up in Washington state, my family liked to nature-watch. We’d look for beaver, identify animal tracks, including mountain lion, and watch salmon jump upstream to spawn. Looking at the Olympic Mountains from our Seattle house, my dad told us that mountain goats lived on their steep cliffs. On long, boring-for-kids drives, sometimes he would try to get us to look around by claiming to see a mountain goat. We’d look hard, just in case, but we never saw one. As an adult, I now know that the mountain goats were an introduced species limited to the Olympics, and are being removed due to their vast destruction of the fragile alpine environment.

So, when up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains on a cold, early summer’s day, I was excited to hike some steep ski slopes that I believed would be ideal to find goats. Morgan—my somewhat reluctant hiking partner—and I climbed and scrambled amongst the scree and scrub to the top of a slope. Not a single animal. We went up a second slope. Nothing. Morgan stated the obvious: “I don’t think we’re going to see anything here.” 

While descending, I wondered how I’d gotten the location so wrong. When we arrived back at the parking lot, there they were! No, not mountain goats, but equally exotic to us, Dall sheep. Nearly 5 feet long and very light brown, they had magnificent curved horns. However, clods of thick fur were hanging off them, and we wondered why they would be foraging in a dirt parking lot. 

“Are they sick?” I asked. 

“I have no idea.” 

We fretted while driving past stunning scenery and several groups of mangy-looking Dall sheep on the road. A huge herd of elk grazed on a local school’s soccer field. Back in the mountains, we saw parked cars, with people boiling out of their vehicles and heading towards a knot of tourists staring at something about 8 feet away. “Probably more Dall sheep,” Morgan joked, but as we drove by, we saw them: a mountain goat ewe and her two kids. They had white-cream fur as soft and fuzzy as I’d dreamed. Mama was standing under a sign that read, “Do not disturb the wildlife.”

On a trip to Nevada, I wanted to find wild donkeys. Morgan again was reluctant, as she thought that seeing burros was unlikely compared to rattlesnakes. “I do have some idea of where the burros are supposed to be,” I said. “Then we find some fresh donkey doo and follow it to its source.” 

“Donkey dung is your plan?” Skeptic. We easily found a good bit of doo near the parking lot. We poked this way and that in the blazing heat, trying to follow what seemed like random paths of doo, but eventually, the doo wasn’t getting any fresher, and neither were we. 

Disappointed, we drove on a dirt road until we were blocked by a stopped car at the intersection with the main road. An arm reached out of the passenger side with a carrot. Then, we saw them: a herd of wild burros at the corner, just waiting for handouts. Foiled again, said our dusty, thirsty, donkey-dung smelling selves, but this time by soft and fuzzy burros. 

Since then, we have continued to observe that where we spot birds and other creatures often is near the parking area. In all of Utah, the only place I saw marmots (a type of large ground squirrel that often lives in western mountains) was a park, where they were munching happily on the lawn. We now realize that the effort and small adversities faced (ticks, poisonous plants, snakes) during hiking are totally unnecessary. 

What explains this phenomenon? When we alter the landscape, we accidentally provide benefits for animals that draw them to non-natural environments—but there are adverse consequences, too. The Dall sheep weren’t sick, just molting; they were getting salt from the roads. This causes vehicle collisions, decimating herds in some places. Like the burros, some animals learn to take easy handouts, although this is often nutritionally detrimental. Artificial grazing areas such as soccer fields, combined with excessive populations, may contribute to the spread of chronic wasting disease among elk and deer. 

These atypical environments also encourage our illusions that these animals are here for our enjoyment, that they are not wild animals and are surviving just fine. 

Serious consequences aside, I appreciate that these areas provide a way for anyone to see wild creatures, but where’s the thrill in watching these beautiful animals in parking lots, soccer fields or parks? One should have to sweat, get bitten by bugs or work at it a bit to appreciate the sweet serendipity of spotting and watching a wondrous creature going about its life.