Montana officials end bighorn sheep hunting after die-off

Montana officials end bighorn sheep hunting after die-off

By Laura Zuckerman

(Reuters) - The die-off of bighorn sheep from pneumonia led Montana wildlife managers on Monday to take the unusual step of abruptly closing a hunting season tied to a wild herd near Yellowstone National Park whose seasonal mating rituals attract scores of wildlife watchers.

The emergency closure came after state biologists estimated that pneumonia had claimed nearly 40 percent of a herd near Gardiner, Montana, whose numbers fell to 55 this month from 89 last year, state wildlife managers said on Monday.

Such pneumonia outbreaks have been linked to contact between wild sheep and domestic ones that graze on public allotments and private lands across the Rocky Mountain West.

More than 1 million bighorns once roamed the region but their numbers had fallen to just tens of thousands in the first decades of the 20th century because of unregulated hunting and disease, according to the Wild Sheep Foundation.

Wildlife managers in Montana and other Western states have renewed efforts in recent years to reintroduce wild sheep in areas where disease and historical over-hunting pushed them close to extinction.

Bighorns are prized by sportsmen and wildlife watchers for their curled horns and for mating rituals in which rival rams crash horns after running at each other at speeds up to 40 miles per hour.

Moves by U.S. land managers to reduce the number of sheep grazing allotments to lessen the disease risk to bighorns have been met with fierce resistance by sheep ranchers, who say the leases of ground are vital to their operations in states like Idaho where the majority of land is under federal control.

Hunters and ranchers, usually in harmony about wildlife management, are divided over bighorn sheep.

"It's an issue of conflict," said Bret Stansberry, landowner-sportsmen coordinator with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The pneumonia among bighorns near the northern entrance of Yellowstone marks the first time the ailment has affected that herd, which is native rather than reintroduced, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks wildlife biologist Karen Loveless.

Biologists have counted at least 34 bighorn carcasses in the area and a recent survey indicated additional wild sheep have become sick, Loveless said.

It is suspected the bighorns contracted pneumonia by mingling with domestic sheep that graze on private lands in the vicinity, said Loveless, adding that there is no sign yet the disease has infected Yellowstone bighorns.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman in Salmon, Idaho)

Sadly not unexpected. Thank you Bill Hoppe.

You can probably thank the azzhole "outfitter" in Gardiner for keeping his domestic pet sheep (not livlelihood mind you - pets) very near the wild herd's territory. Rams have been seen right by his fence touching noses with his ewes. He has a chip on his shoulder with MT FWP and refuses to address the problem is what I hear.

*edit*. Yes thank you Bill Hoppe. (Wasn't going to reveal his name but I see its out there. Wouldn't be hard to find anyhoo.

The OPP virus is in the mouth and nose of healthy sheep wild or domestic when they are stressed it gets them, bad weather conditions short on forage or predators chasing them. danny

If the guy actually had a tizzy fit with MTFWP and purposefully screwed around with domestic sheep in order to infect wild ones that is pretty fuucked up.

It wasn't purposeful per se, he shot some wolves that were attacking his pet sheep (rightly so) and FWP asked him to move the sheep to his other property and he stubbornly refused because he is very anti wolf. The sheep pneumonia question came up then but he still refused to move them even when he was made aware of the problem with wild bighorns co mingling with his pets. By the way this is all 5 miles from Yellowstone Park.

This was all a year or two ago could be different now don't know.

A few years ago, Idaho had a big sheep die-off in Owyhee county. They used to issue 60 tags scattered over a number of units and the odds of drawing were very high. Then they got hit by one disease or another and the IDFG was forced to drop the tags to about 12 or 15. They graze a lot of domestic sheep out there but I don't know if they were the problem.

The Forest Service has been talking about outlawing pack goats in many forests because of potential diseases being spread to bighorns. It's a stupid move, mainly aimed at just keeping goats out of the forest. The chances of a pack goat coming in contact with a wild sheep are zero to none.

There have been 2 other bighorn die offs the last few years here in Montana, both from pneumonia like the ones near Gardiner. FWP tried to tie both of these to domestic sheep, but the problem was that there were no domestic sheep around to use as a scape goat. When the dust settled, they had to admit that they didn't know what caused the pneumonia out break. There has been conflicting data on wether contact with domestic sheep causes this. And politics is involved. Ranchers say that it doesn't occur, and Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and the forest Service doesn't like ranching of any kind, so they have an agenda as well. Bottom line is no one knows for sure why these sheep herds will all of a sudden have dies offs like the one in Gardiner.

This is from the Hoppe's Gardiner ranch last fall. There is no speculation that Hoppe's domestic and wild sheep commingled.

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no doubt about the co-mingling. Just not sure if domestic sheep give the pneumonia to the big horns. It is certainly possible, but one side(FWP)says it does, and one side (ranchers) say it doesn't. Both with agendas. I know that there are no domestic sheep around the upper Rock Creek herd, and they got it 2 winters ago. I also know that their over-all numbers were way above objective. A lot of sheep in a small area. It is also possible that a ram with exposure to domestic sheep traveled to this bunch during the rut. I've seen those rams out in the middle of no-where when rutting. Something conclusive without bias would be nice, but maybe we just simply don't know for sure.

Actually there have been numerous studies showing that domestic sheep and goats can and do give Pasteurella (the most common form of the pneumonia), along with other various illnesses, to wild sheep and goats. Now whether that is how every wild sheep or goat gets pneumonia or whether every time a wild sheep/goat contacts a domestic one its gonna get sick or not is obviously hard to say definitively. We will never know for every case. But having wild and domestic sheep/goats co-mingling is undoubtedly going to up the chances of infection.