The Struggle of the Bighorn

...Partee is a game biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, and six months ago, he helped to shoot and kill nearly 30 bighorn sheep in those mountains. Most of the animals were too sick to run. “The sheep were walking dead,” he recalled. “It was terrible.” The animals were suffering from a deadly form of pneumonia — one that numerous studies suggest can be passed on to wild herds during contact with grazing, domesticated sheep. The bacteria that causes it has been killing bighorns since the 19th century, and while efforts to combat the disease, along with other conservation measures, have helped to stave off the wholesale disappearance of wild sheep from the American West, its persistence has hampered a full recovery. This has officials continually scrambling to stop the spread of the disease, often through large-scale culling of sick animals or enforced separations of domestic and wild herds — though usually both. No one seems happy with these solutions. For their part, environmental and animal-rights groups decry the mass die-offs of wild sheep, and they call for more aggressive efforts to keep disease-harboring livestock at a distance. But while the separation of wild herds and grazing livestock can serve as an effective management tool, it, too comes at a cost: Ranchers rely on public lands to graze their sheep, after all, and wholesale bans on grazing have forced some herders out of business altogether. That has experts like Partee, who likened the killing of bighorns to being “punched in the gut,” looking for other strategies — although so far, science has failed to produce viable alternatives...more

Forest Service To Cut Grazing, Implement Bighorn Sheep Plan in Utah

The bighorn management framework of Region 4 of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is now being implemented in Utah. Utah sheep producers have been informed of the agency's decision to close and reduce sheep grazing allotments by 2017 due to bighorn management. The consequences of the forest service's decision for the ranchers will range from a complete loss of two allotments and drastically reduced grazing days on additional allotments to the loss of other allotments due to "risk of contact" between domestic and bighorn sheep. According to American Sheep Industry Association Executive Director Peter Orwick, "The forest service announced last year that they were implementing a plan for bighorn sheep that was developed in cooperation with the Western Watersheds Project, an anti-livestock grazing group. The plan removes domestic sheep from grazing allotments to keep the two species - domestic and bighorn sheep - separate. The 'occupied bighorn habitat' impacts 7 percent to 10 percent of the nation's domestic sheep. In 'potential habitat,' over 20 percent of the industry is threatened. Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming are in Region 4 of USFS along with Utah." "As feared, the agency announced closure of grazing with no offer of alternative grazing for the sheep rancher," continued Orwick. "Western sheep ranches were built decades ago on the basis of high country grazing in the summer and, if these allotments are not replaced, where do they go with thousands of ewes and lambs? Under a similar scenario on the Payette Forest in Idaho several years ago, thousands of animals were sold and ranches went out of business."...more

Forest service to Wyoming: Bighorn herd in legislative debate isn't a concern

Federal officials aren't concerned about a western Wyoming bighorn sheep herd that has become a point of debate in Cheyenne. Legislators are working to protect Wyoming's domestic sheepherders after a recent U.S. Forest Service action to limit domestic sheep grazing in Idaho's Payette National Forest.  Nora Rasure, U.S. Forest Service regional forester, said state lawmakers have nothing to worry about in a recent letter to Gov. Matt Mead. Concern from both parties rose from a proposal to remove bighorn sheep from the Darby Mountain region near Afton. Rasure said the current bighorn sheep management plan identifies the Darby region's sheep as a "non-emphasis" herd.  "We do not have any current desire to address risks that domestic sheep may represent to that herd," she wrote in the letter to Gov. Mead...more

The Forest Service says they have no current desire to protect bighorns from domestic sheep in the area that has a "non-emphasis" herd.  Future desires may change and "non-emphasis" is just an administrative designation subject to change.  Act now legislature, act now.

Butting heads: Ranchers unhappy with lawsuit; Bighorn sheep bill moves forward

Patrick O’Toole and his family are concerned about the lawsuit filed against the U.S. Forest Service by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance. If the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance wins its lawsuit, O’Toole will not be issued anymore permits for his sheep to graze on federal land. “There are people who don’t want people to have livestock,” Rancher Patrick O’Toole said. As a multi-generational ranching family, the O’Tooles utilize rotational grazing on private, privately leased, state leased, BLM and federal lands. The O’Toole’s raise cattle, sheep and horses and his family raised livestock since the Great Depression. Senator Larry Hicks maintains that if the lawsuit filed by BCA succeeds, it would wipe out sheep producers in Carbon County.  “They hate ranchers,” he said. BCA is involved in a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service regarding its practice of issuing permits for domestic sheep grazing in the Medicine Bow Forest. The concern is that bighorn sheep herds in the area will be in danger. “It would be a fundamental loss for people who ranch in the Western state, particularly Wyoming,” O’Toole said.  Disease transmission from domestic sheep herds to the bighorn sheep herds is at the root of BCA’s concern. BCA claims that the sheep are in danger of contracting diseases that could potentially wipe out the Encampment herd and impact the diversity required to maintain healthy herds of bighorn sheep in the Medicine Bow Forest...more