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An orphaned mountain goat kid is tugging at the heartstrings of a Tracy Arm boat crew.

In the years Capt. Steve Weber has taken tourists to the Sawyer Glacier, he has seen a mountain goat chased by a bear and a pod of orcas attack a young humpback.

It's all part of nature, he said, but witnessing a baby goat's birth early last month, its mother's death a few weeks later, and now the kid's perilous situation perched alone on a cliff above the sea, is making a conservationist out of the skipper.

He applied for a permit from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and on Sunday was waiting for permission to snatch the baby mountain goat off the cliff and save its life.

Only three weeks old, the pure white kid with black button eyes isn't yet weaned so it hadn't eaten since Friday, when its mother drowned in the sea. It is likely to die from dehydration before too many more days, Weber said.

"Generally the philosophy of Fish and Game is to let nature take its course, but we've developed an attachment to this animal and feel the right thing to do is to try to help it," he said.

The goat can't escape its predicament because the terrain in the fjord is too steep, Weber said. "This little guy is either going to die in place there or it's going to get rescued."

Late Sunday as the crew returned to dock with a boat full of mostly German tourists, word came from office headquarters that the permit was issued. After a cheer from the passengers, Weber said he'd head out this morning with a technical mountain climber to see if the goat can be saved. It was last seen Sunday afternoon on a steep rock face about 50 feet above the sea.

Weber was conflicted over his decision to wait for approval, but added that the state department was helpful and understanding when he had spoken with them Saturday night. Agency officials wanted to secure a home for the animal before issuing a permit to capture it, and on Sunday an Anchorage zoo agreed to take the animal.

On Sunday, deck hand Mike Weber, the captain's brother, was becoming impatient.

"Every day we go look for him, you know, I hope he's alive," Mike Weber said. "When you see this baby goat up there, he's starving, you watched him being born and you want to help him."

After 15 years of doing tours in the fjord, Capt. Weber said he is still not tired of it. Every day brings something new, and he said his formula for pleasing clients is to entertain himself by waiting to see what nature offers.

Witnessing the goat's birth and following its growth created the crew's emotional attachment to the animal, said Weber, who has been in Alaska since 1989.

"Any kind of baby animal makes you feel good," he said. "Mountain goats are a very durable, wild animal but at birth they, like other animals, are vulnerable. They need care, and we are bothered by the notion this baby will dehydrate or starve right before our eyes, and we want to prevent that."

During its third trip of the season on about May 8, the crew saw an adult female goat on a ledge in the fjord, Weber said. Two days later, he saw that she had given birth and the next day, the baby stood on wobbly legs. The kid seemed too young to climb the steep rock terrain leading away from the ledge. Unwilling to leave her baby, the adult goat foraged until all the vegetation was cleared off the rocks in the vicinity. Over the next few weeks, the baby grew.

The crew thought both goats would leave the area once the baby was strong enough to climb out. But by Tuesday the mother goat started to weaken. It hadn't rained so she was probably dehydrated, Weber said. On Friday, Capt. John Melino of the Captain Cook saw her drinking sea water, and on his return trip saw her floating dead in the sea below the ledge.

The 56-foot Adventure Bound was set to depart today for Tracy Arm at 7:30 a.m.

"Hopefully the goat will be in a position where we can help it," Weber said. "It all remains to be seen."