Everything About Bighorn

Sick, wandering bighorn trailed near Salmon River
by The Associated Press

Sunday May 31, 2009, 2:39 PM

The hunt is on for a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep ram believed to be sick with pneumonia. It's a race wildlife officials say could mean life and death for other members of the wild herd in the Salmon River canyon.

Idaho Fish and Game wildlife managers are trying to kill the ram, to keep it from spreading disease to the roughly 100 other bighorns that live here.

But the ram has eluded them for more than a week and is now running with other rams. The afflicted bighorn ram was seen near domestic sheep and this incident could prove another flashpoint in the contentious debate over how to manage wild sheep and livestock in remote western Idaho.

"At this point, all we know is we have a sick ram that has interacted with other bighorn rams and we are just sitting on pins and needles to see what happens," Curt Mack, a wildlife researcher for the Nez Perce Tribe in McCall, told the Lewiston Tribune. "The hope is, it won't turn into an outbreak."

The ram is reported to be lethargic, coughing, sneezing and discharging mucus from its nostrils, all signs of a disease that has plagued bighorn sheep all over the West. Most wildlife researchers believe it is contracted by wild sheep after coming into contact with their domestic cousins.

In the 2009 Legislature, bighorns were front and center when lawmakers voted to require the Idaho Department of Fish and Game develop a plan to keep bighorns away from domestic sheep now being blamed for spreading diseases. That was after a harsher version that would have required the agency to either relocate or kill bighorns that wandered onto public grazing allotments was vetoed by Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter.

The measures arose from frustration of ranchers in western Idaho's Hell's Canyon, who believe federal wildlife managers reneged on a deal to protect their businesses after bighorns were reintroduced to the region.

Since then, however, the Nez Perce Tribe announced it is pulling out of a collaborative bighorn sheep panel called together by Otter because it believes the bill undermines the process. The goal of the group -- made up of state officials, sheep ranchers, sportsmen and environmental organizations -- had been to protect the sheep ranching industry while seeking a way for bighorn sheep to avoid contacting domestic sheep.

Tribal officials said this latest example of the sick, wandering ram illustrates that as long as the two species occupy the same areas, keeping them separate is impossible.

"It's unfortunate we are placed in the position of having to kill bighorns to save them. This is not a sustainable strategy for recovery," Nez Perce Chairman Samuel Penny said.

Later this year, the Payette National Forest is scheduled to release its domestic sheep management plan. It would trump the state law on federal public land.