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On a related line...this article appeared in our paper today. The South Hills are a band of low mountains in so. Idaho between the Snake River and the NV & UT borders. About 30 years ago, the IDFG attempted to transplant some bighorns to build a herd in the area. They've never increased much and have had disease problems. There are domestic sheep and goats in the area. They don't say if the diseases can be traced to them but the bighorns have had a rough time of it.
The IDFG finally gave it up. Rather than doing what the liberals would do, ban the sheep and goats that have grazed the area for over 100 years, they eliminated the last 4 bighorns to keep them from spreading their diseases.

JEROME — The Idaho Department of Fish and Game has lethally removed the South Hills’ last four bighorn sheep.

Fish and Game believes that the two ewes and two young rams represented the last remnants of a reintroduction effort that took place between 1986 and 1993.

Fifty bighorn sheep were released in the South Hills’ Unit 54 during that time period, but the population struggled from the outset. Bighorns in the Big Cottonwood area of the South Hills died off, and even though more sheep were introduced, the species continued to have difficulty maintaining healthy numbers.

By 2010, Fish and Game estimated the South Hills was home to 15 bighorns, and due to the proximity of domestic sheep and goat herds, the department determined new reintroductions posed too great of a disease risk — nearby domestic goat and sheep herds threatened to spread respiratory diseases to new bighorns. The population declined further in the 2010s, falling to an estimated 10 in 2017.

Fish and Game said in a press release Wednesday that lethally removing the remaining bighorns was necessary in order to avoid spreading disease. Wildlife managers became increasingly concerned that small South Hills population would travel outside of the South Hills and infect healthy bighorn sheep herds in other areas with respiratory diseases, causing die-offs.

In an effort to avoid the spread of disease, Fish and Game issued bighorn sheep hunting tags for aging rams in 2017 and 2018.

Fish and Game collected biological samples from the final four bighorns after putting them down. The meat from the four animals was processed and sent to local food banks.