BAKER CITY, Ore. -- Satellite tracking technology may help state biologists learn more about the habits of mountain goats while helping keep track of the elusive animals should they stray from the territory where they are supposed to roam.

The animals can wander. About a decade ago a goat reared in the Elkhorn Mountains near Baker City roamed all the way to Mitchell, 100 miles to the west.

Two goats that are supposed to roam the Strawberry Mountains south of Prairie City are going to be the test animals for the tracking experiment, said Nick Myatt, district wildlife biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in Baker City.

Last week, Myatt and 11 other people, most of them fellow ODFW employees, netted 13 mountain goats at Goodrich Lake, high in the Elkhorns about 12 miles northwest of Baker City.

Every summer since 2000, the state has trapped goats at Goodrich Lake and then released the animals in northeastern Oregon wildlands which, unlike the Elkhorns, lack a healthy goat herd.

Biologists estimate 175 goats live in the Elkhorns, and they have trapped about 115 of the animals over the past eight years.

But this year, the state wildlife agency hauled the Elkhorn goats south to the Strawberrys rather than east to Hells Canyon or the Wallowas as in years past.

About a dozen goats were already roaming the Strawberrys before last week's transplants. Biologists believe those goats migrated from the Elkhorns over the past several years.

Biologists also equipped two of the goats with Global Positioning System, or GPS, collars.

It was the first time the collars, which cost $5,700 each, have been used with mountain goats, Myatt said.

In the past the agency has used radio collars, which are much cheaper at $300 each but don't store data as the GPS collars do.

The collars are programmed to pinpoint the goats' position every 30 minutes for the next couple of months, then every three hours, said Ryan Torland, an ODFW district biologist in Canyon City, just west of the Strawberrys.

Biologists can adjust that interval to as often as every 10 minutes by remote control. In addition to tracking where the goats go, the collars will record temperatures.

"At the end of two years we're going to get this huge data set," Myatt said. "We'll be able to track the goats' daily movements and their seasonal movements."

Biologists are especially interested in learning more about how goats survive the polar conditions in the high mountains. Unlike other big-game animals such as deer and elk, mountain goats don't descend to lower, more hospitable lower elevations during winter.

"We're pretty excited," Myatt said.