FWP to reconsider sheep’s place on public land

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks plans to take another look at whether it should allow sheep ranchers to trail their livestock across a 28,000-acres swath of land in Southwestern Montana. Earlier this month, three conservation groups challenged the agency for allowing domestic sheep to cross the Robb-Ledford Wildlife Management Area, a practice the groups say makes the habitat inhospitable to bighorn sheep due to diseases the domestic sheep can give to bighorns. “The most immediate issue regarding bighorns in Montana is the domestic sheep trailing FWP allows on the Robb-Ledford Wildlife Management Area,” wrote Summer Nelson, Montana legal counsel for the Western Watersheds Project in Missoula on behalf of her group, the Gallatin Wildlife Association and hunting group Safari Club International. “WWP, GWA and SCI contend this use is incompatible with WMA purposes, public trust responsibilities over native wildlife and restoring and maintaining healthy bighorn herds.” Pat Flowers, director of FWP Region 3 based in Bozeman, said his agency has never done an environmental analysis of allowing domestic sheep onto the Robb-Ledford, since sheep don’t graze there. Rather, the sheep spend about two days on the Robb-Ledford en route to and from grazing allotments in the Gravelly Mountains south of Ennis...BozemanDailyChronicle