The Park Service released a plan in January to use a combination of shooters on the ground and on contracted helicopters before goats become too plentiful to be easily eliminated from the craggy mountains.

“The National Park Service has a legal responsibility to protect native species and reduce the potential for the local extinction of a native species within the park,” Germann wrote Monday.

Foul weather postponed a previous plan for aerial shooting in January but Friday’s weather in the Teton Range was clear and calm. Park officials closed off large portions of the mountains to the public in preparation.

Gordon’s letter came after Wyoming Game and Fish Department Director Brian Nesvik voiced last-minute objections by phone with Noojidail on Friday.

“I will remember your blatant disregard for the advice of Wyoming’s Game and Fish Department,” Gordon wrote Noojidail. “I am simply at a loss for why the Park Service would ignore an opportunity to work towards a solution upon which we could both agree and can only take it as an expression of your regard for neighbors and the respect you apparently do not have for Wyoming or our professionals.”