On the Range
Wild Bighorns Threatened by Domestic Sheep
Should domestic sheep be permitted to graze on public lands when their presence threatens the survival of wild bighorn sheep? That's a question that is increasingly getting serious discussion around the West.By George Wuerthner, 6-23-09
At one point in my life I was very interested in studying wild sheep. I almost accepted a graduate research project at the U of Alaska to look at winter diet and behavior of Dall sheep in the Brooks Range. I wimped out when I realized that I’d be alone months at a time in a tiny cabin on the North Slope peering through a night vision scope to watch the animals in the near 24 hours of darkness of mid-winter forage in 50 below zero weather. It just didn’t sound like that much fun—though definitely interesting. But for a number of years I read everything I could about wild sheep, and I continue to follow research and news about wild sheep to this date.
Wild bighorn sheep were once fairly common in the western United States and Canada. Some estimates suggest as many as 1-2 million wild sheep once roamed the West. By 1900, over-hunting, habitat degradation and perhaps most importantly disease transmission from domestic sheep to wild sheep had brought the bighorns down to an estimated 15,000. Today there are about 75,000 sheep in the western US and Canada.
While that is a significant growth from its low point, wild bighorn sheep populations are nowhere near their biological potential. There is no doubt in my mind that the West could easily support far more sheep were it not for one thing—domestic livestock.
One thing that was obvious from a study of the literature is that whenever domestic sheep grazing overlaps with wild bighorn sheep, disease frequently decimates the wild animals. So prevalent was this in the scientific literature, I did not think it was controversial—yet as recently as this year the state of Idaho was debating whether domestic sheep were really a threat to wild sheep populations.
The biggest problem for wild sheep is development of pneumonia after contracting Pasturella bacteria from their domestic cousins. Sometimes as many much as 75 percent of the herds may die. For instance, in one study of Hells Canyon, 43 percent of the mortality was due to pneumonia and the researchers believed it was the major limit on bighorn sheep population growth.
Francis Singer and his associates looked at 24 transplanted sheep populations and correlation between persistence and distance to domestic sheep. Not surprising to most wildlife biologists, Singer found that the closer domestic sheep were to wild sheep, the less likely for bighorns to persist. In another study Singer also looked at over 100 bighorn transplants in six western states. Again he found the closer domestic sheep came to wild bighorn, the more likely those sheep were to disappear.
Despite many examples of such die-offs from around the West, the livestock industry and its lackeys in government continue to deny there is any link or at least try to confuse the connection by suggesting there is uncertainty.
This kind of deliberate obfuscation occurred recently when Dr. Marie Bulgin, a University of Idaho professor, and former President of the Idaho Sheep Growers Association, testified before the Idaho Legislature and in federal court that there was no firm scientific link showing domestic sheep transmitted pneumonia to bighorn sheep in the wild. This despite the fact that research on exactly that issue was done in a laboratory she supervised, and indeed, her own daughter participated in the study. There is 1999 story in the Science Daily that discusses research at the U of Idaho that confirms that domestic sheep can be the source of disease transmission.
The fear of disease transmission and subsequent bighorn die-offs has deterred restoration of wild sheep to many areas of the West. For instance, I recall one time in the 1990s when the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department (MFWPD) proposed to introduce mountain goats to the Centennial Range on the Idaho-Montana border. Goats were never native to the range, but bighorn were. When I wrote the department suggesting that they reintroduce bighorn, they responded by saying that as long as domestic sheep grazed the range, there was little point in attempting any restoration, due to disease concerns. Similar concerns in many other parts of the West have precluded reestablishment of bighorns in native habitat.
There is good reason for this caution. As recently as January 2008, a number of bighorn sheep in Montana’s Elkhorn Mountains by Helena died from pneumonia thought to have been contracted from domestic animals. Other major die-offs in Montana have been reported for bighorn herds in the East Pioneers, Tendoy Mountains, Highland Mountains, Sleeping Giant Area, and Madison Range, as well as elsewhere. There have been several major die-offs of wild sheep in the Hells Canyon area of Idaho and Oregon and in the Sierra Nevada of California. Many other examples could be cited.
Rather than do the obvious, which is to eliminate public land use by domestic sheep, wildlife agencies have taken to killing wild bighorn sheep. Just this past month in Idaho the Idaho Fish and Game shot a ram that was known to mix with domestic sheep along the Salmon River near Riggins. As many as 11 other sheep had contact with that ram and may also be killed. This bighorn was killed in response to a new law passed by the Idaho Legislature that requires Idaho Fish and Game to kill or remove sheep that get near domestic sheep.
Without being forced by the legislature, the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks (MDFWP) has adopted a similar policy. For instance, prior to a reintroduction of bighorn sheep to the Gravelly Range on the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest near Dillon, MDFWP signed an agreement stipulating that if wild sheep had any interaction with domestic sheep, the wild sheep would be shot—and potentially even entire bighorn herds eliminated.
Disease transmission is only one of the threats posed to wild bighorn sheep by the presence of domestic sheep. Keep in mind there is no free lunch. Domestic animals consume forage that would otherwise support native species like wild bighorn sheep. This forage competition can stress wild sheep, making them more vulnerable to disease or starvation.
Also domestic livestock grazing (including cattle) have frequently altered plant communities to favor browse species desired by mule deer, whose populations sometimes increase and provide alternative prey to support higher populations of mountain lions, which can prey on bighorn sheep. Since many bighorn herds are small and isolated, even the loss of a few animals to predators can hurt wild herd survival. While predators get the blame, the ultimate source of the conflict lies with domestic livestock.
This naturally raises the question of why domestic animals grazed on public lands have preference over wild bighorn sheep. Why not just close the domestic sheep allotments so that wild animals are given priority?
Only a few environmental groups are willing to take on the Western myth. The Idaho-based group Western Watersheds is one of the most persistent critics of the livestock industry and has sued the Forest Service in Idaho and Wyoming over the management of wild bighorn and domestic livestock—arguing that the agency should keep domestic animals away from wild herds, and should even close allotments if necessary. (In the interest of disclosure, I am an advisor to WWP).
Recently in Montana, the Gallatin Wildlife Association (I am a member) is requesting that the Beaverhead Deerlodge National Forest close down sheep grazing allotments in the Gravelly Range and Snowcrest Ranges to safeguard wild sheep. The Center for Biodiversity (I am an ecological advisor) is also working to protect wild sheep from their domestic cousins in California.
I am convinced that as long as domestic sheep are roaming our public lands, wild bighorn sheep will never reach their biological potential. And that is a loss not only to hunters, but to the public at large who could be enjoying restoration of bighorn herds throughout the West.
The real issue is larger than wild bighorn sheep. Whether it is bighorn sheep, bison, grizzly bears, wolves, cutthroat trout, prairie dogs, or sage grouse, if private business (i.e. livestock production) threatens public wildlife on public lands, shouldn’t the private businesses be the ones that ought to go?
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I would be a proponent of wild sheep conservation but for the issue of who gets to kill the last sheep. Introduced wolves predating on introduced bighorns is a self fulfilling prophesy. Add cougars protected from realistic hunting (man did domesticate and select for dogs to trail animals, long ago, and predators did evolve with man and his domesticated dogs, so why did that become a crime against nature in the 20th century?), and domestic sheep or no, big horns are not going to reach critical mass that allows them to inhabit all the available suitable habitat. 40 years of effort has not been stopped by domestic sheep, but it sure has been impacted by cougars, wolves and hunting. And, if the bighorns graze to tight to the ground, they will get liver flukes from ingesting snails that do seriously weaken immune systems. Are the domestic sheep the source of the flukes in that circular fluke life track?
Fish and Wildlife agencies exist on gun, bullet and camping tariffs, and sales of opportunities to kill. The best that can be said about hunting is that if the critter is considered game, the hunters are the ones who step up and put up the money to save habitat and regulate hunting. The worst, is that the agencies will hold hunts that are not sustainable in order to sustain budgets and their constituencies.
No salmon fishing allowed off the California coast in 2009, and very reduced restrictions on chinook fishing in Oregon, and all the allowed chinook fishing is in bays and rivers, and none allowed on the ocean. An abundant hatchery coho biomass is out there in a now fecund ocean, so the daily limit of marked coho is three fish. All unmarked, wild coho and all chinook are to be released unharmed. That allows rods to be in the water 50% more time, and increases the likelihood of hooking a wild coho or a chinook, and hooked fish, even when released, do have a mortality rate of as much as 30%. I don't see the "conservation" in that decision. First, nobody "needs" an extra salmon. Second, the best use of excess hatchery fish is their dead body in a stream to improve the habitat for wild hatchlings. The carcass as biomass to feed the stream and riparian ecosystem. Drying out in someone's freezer is hardly the highest use. One fish and they eat that fresh. Two fish, one is given away or frozen. Three fish, one or two are frozen. Human nature.
So, with sheep, I fail to see the need to end sheep herding to protect an increased number of opportunities to kill a big horn. If the sheep have decimated habitat, take them off and rest the land. But vegans will still hate you for killing an animal. And nobody has yet to reveal if the pre-European estimate of 60 million bison living on the grasslands maintained by native American fire regimes farted. I need to know if the bison passed gas and contributed to global warming. I know the firing of the plains had to contribute. But I don't know a thing about bison farts. Is a bison fart like a falling tree in the forest? If you can't see it, smell it, or hear it, did it happen? The smoke you can see. You know wildland fire is a huge contributor to air pollution. But I need to know if bison farts are fewer and less offensive and polluting than cow farts. Bison turds are not sloppy, but ankle breakers for sure. Hikers must just hate them. Big horns are interesting to look at, and good to eat.
Like geriatric Asians looking for a cure for erectile dysfunction by ingesting rhino horns, in the hoity-toity crowd, having a sheep head from the "big four" of North America, the Dall, Stone, Big Horn and Desert Big Horn makes you a member of the Grand Slam club. But that has become passe', and others have been added, and there is a World Grand Slam, ad nauseum. There is something plebian, earthy about a band of sheep in the mountains. A really rich guy with guides and a catered camp looking to add a sheep head to the wall while his trophy bride adds a pool boy to her boudoir check list doesn't have the cachet of blue collar sweat and an earned living like herding sheep to put lamb on the urban market shelves. My perception and take.
The real question will be if the lamb shanks at the St. Martin's Hotel in Winnemucca or the lamb at the Star Hotel in Elko will taste the same after the swells in Dallas and Scottsdale get the herders banned from public lands? Now that would be a real loss.
This is an issue very similar to the unjust treatment of bison in southwest Montana where, in this case a few domestic sheep owners are subsidized by the federal government and their use of public lands precludes the restoration and conservation of native bighorn sheep across a vast landscape of wild country. The impact is felt across the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest as well as on a number of FWP owned Wildlife Management Areas, including the Robb-Ledford, Blacktail and Wall Creek WMAs that are located on the perimeter of the Gravelly-Snowcrest Mountain Ranges.
These sheep and cattle remind me of the illegal aliens. Infiltrating into pristine lands, and made to be confined, thus, spreading disease and destroying the land not helping it at all. Illegal Aliens move in take jobs have babies, spread disease, and collect U.S dollars, without having to pay their fare share. The best weed spreaders there are, is domestic livestock. They eat in one place then get moved to another pasture, and fertilize the seeds from the plants they just ate. Lest we forget the 'rancher' driving through the fields, gathering seeds etc. and loading the 4x4 up and taking those seeds to grow in other places. (Utility workers spread weeds probably the most) Best solution I see, is if you don't have the land to pasture your livestock get rid of your livestock. Private Land for livestock. Public land for wildlife, since wildlife belong to the public. Those domestic animals belong to only 'you', and you can do what you will with them, BUT the wildlife belong to everybody, and it's only fair that We as JQ Public should be allowed to enjoy 'our' wildlife, on 'our' public land, after all public land belongs to the public not any one individual. If FW&P;have to shoot the wild sheep then it's only fitting we get to shoot the domestic ones. I can guarantee you the land would be in much better shape withOUT domestic livestock setting foot on it. Bottom line the livestock industry wants to control everything. They want to decide what you eat, how much you pay,and what you can have on your own private land. (even though the wildlife is much healthier for consumption), No antibiotics, No Hormones, No body playing God with them. Instead of removing the wild sheep take the domestic to central park, and let them save on fuel, and labor, by grazing instead of all those exhaust fumes from lawn mowers. It would be a one time shipping fee to get the domestic there, instead of subsidizing them year after year
You've got to quit confusing me! You're making sense again, and I'm just not sure what to do with that. Did you quit hanging out with Matt or something? Keep it up! Maybe you're coming around ;)
Bearbait - as a general rule hunting the males of a species does not effect populations significantly. The exception to this is when there aren't enough males to breed all the females, so if the western states can make a few bucks off some rich guy wanting to shoot one, why not? As long as there's still opportunity for locals, I don't have a problem with it. Of course sometimes the rich guys then move here . . . but that's another issue.
Maybe the rancher should be charged the price of killing and even if they don't, processing of every Wild one killed. Maybe then the Rancher would start taking care of their own. i.e. vaccines, or finding private land to pasture on. I'm sick and tired of cowtowing to the almighty Rancher. If you don't have livestock your rights are trampled into the ground. But if you own Livestock you get all kinds of handouts.
Edenic America, maintained by Native American set fire and directed burning, is no longer possible. Too many people, metes and bounds concerns, myriad "evolved" human concerns in a federal republic with great expanses of federal lands. Therefore, we have to deal with our environmental concerns in many areas, all at the same time.
Right now, the issue is universal health care at trillion dollar costs, at a time when population gains threaten the very environments liberals most want to conserve. The idea of conservation of land off limits to human use and an expanding population with universal medical care that today primarily is concerned with human foibles and results of lifestyle choices are seemingly diametrically opposed. The issue, then, becomes one of metering out federal benefits to satisfy the desires of not the whole of the population (the goal of universal health care) but to the vocal majority with political power with no regard to minority positions. The party of diversity often choses uniform solutions, which is logically not possible to effect of achieve.
There has to be recognition that bighorn sheep cannot occupy all their former range at their former population levels. That is edenic dreaming and politically not possible, if only that there will be some who will eliminate sheep forced on them. Human nature. That illegal activity is no different than spiking trees or burning buildings in the name of saving the environment. Much of the former habitat of bighorn sheep has become residential or bisected by transportation corridors, or is impacted by domestic livestock, all legitimate human endeavors is you look at the world and not Montana. Sheep are everywhere in the Middle East, Europe, and parts of Asia, and right where wild sheep also live.
I watched a fantastic video on the net of Mongolian horsemen hunting wolves with golden eagles in the snow, I suppose in the age old quest to protect domestic livestock. PETA somehow missed that hunting trip. 28 distinct ethnic groups herd domestic caribou in Europe and Asia, but no North American peoples were known to herd domestic caribou (reindeer) that we know of. Preserved burials of reindeer people 15,000 or more years old have revealed bodies with reindeer tattoos in their skin in coverage that looks not unlike that you see today on the street, revealed by summer clothing. We have to understand and know that our very humaness is defined in part by our domestication of livestock and plants, world wide. That is who we are.
We are also landscape managers on a broad scale, for millennia. We are the fire animals. We can cause ignition and use fire to manage a landscape for our good, our survival, and not that of a landscape without human influence. Again, that is who were are, and it is humans who determined where bighorns lived and were hunted by our predecessors on this landscape. That some were even named by their neighbors or the early explorers "Sheep Eaters" should be noticed. They didn't live just anywhere. They lived where there were sufficient sheep to support their survival. I admire their choice of sustenance: sheep are damned good eating. Both domestic and wild.
There has to be balance in the equation of human diversity (herding sheep in the mountains is as viable as writing software in the city) on the land, and there have to be concerted efforts to keep all aspects of the human condition, including herding sheep in the mountains. That activity has been ongoing in Europe for how many thousands of years, and still Europe maintains wild areas and wildlife. Sometimes, perhaps, we allow zealots to have too much influence, on either side of the equation.
Sheep across the unclaimed Public Domain, not cattle, were the reason for the various grazing acts of the early 20th century. There were many bands of sheep that just trailed across the West, with no home place, land of any kind, to take care of the sheep when not on public lands. That is the reason for the grazing permits being issued based on the size of private holdings, and for those with no private holdings, no permit. It was a troublesome time that took a decade or better to level off. The next part of sheep was that in a prior time, when petroleum was not the basis for food, clothing, and fire protection, sheep were very, very important to our national defense. The reason Americans don't eat much sheep today is due to that being the only meat available in WWII due to rationing that made feeding soldiers primary. Mutton day after day did not make Americans love that meat. Sheep, cattle, free range horses and mules, copper and other metal mining, petroleum from public lands, all fed the war machine that allowed the US in just a little more than 4 years to win a two front world war. Just because we can import all the lamb we will ever eat, and wool which is passe' in clothing, horses which we have too many of to the point of a national problem, and a huge population of recreational liberals who seemingly hate mining, all need to know that public lands have myriad uses, not all of which are based on digital photography and titanium and aluminum gear encased in petroleum based fabrics. Sheep permits are part of that diverse use of public lands. That there should be fewer should be up for discussion. That there are far fewer than there were a decade ago is fact. More sheep permits have been canceled than there are permits offered today. That seems not to be talked about.
In my end of the world, there are no longer sheep on Steens Mtn., and far fewer bighorn tags (cougars are way too numerous) as well as far fewer mule deer. Vast areas are now off limits to cattle, too. But there is no demonstrated increase in game animals. The driving force is no cat hunting with dogs, but initiative passed in urban Oregon, to regulate the rural parts of the State. The tyranny of the urban majority is alive and well. There are also no sheep in the Wallowa Mountains and the Hells Canyon country. All permits were pulled to preserve big horn sheep. They still get pneumonia from other bighorns. They still have limited winter range, and mingle with domestic livestock. The big rams like cheetos, according to a buckaroo I met, on their winter range on private land. Eat them out of your hand. Rich guys pay a hundred thousand dollars to kill one with the Governor's tag bought at auction. Hard to see the challenge in killing a cheetos eating sheep. Would you mount him with a cheeto hanging from his lip? (I am being coy---in the late summer and fall when they are hunted, they are in really, really remote areas, and skittish as all hell, and very hard to hunt).
If there is a canary in the coal mine, it is that undocumented worker's kid born this morning in Anywhere, The West, who comes from an ethnic group that is producing 4 babies a life time for every female in that demographic, to the 1 the Anglos are producing. You should ask them what to do about bighorns. It will soon be their problem to solve.
I find it unfortunate that you so frequently direct the debate towards race. I grew up in a minority majority state, and it's not the end of the world. Mexicans are people too, and if they bred us "anglos" out, so be it. Our country is clearly facing some illegal immigration challenges, but that doesn't mean the people who are coming over are some inferior quality that shouldn't be passed on. Hell, anyone who makes it all the way from Sonora to Oregon is real resourceful All of this "Americans being bred out of their way of life" fearmongering is nonsense, especially since at least half of the American west used to be in Mexico!
I didn't see anybody direct anything towards Race. You are the one making it about race. Why are the supposed Non-prejudiced people, always the ones using the Race card? Guilty conscience maybe? If you were referring to my post about the illegal aliens, then you must know we have all kinds shapes and colors of illegals.
Every thing I've read and re-read that is anywhere near what you may have meant by bringing up RACE, is True and factual. Kind of like, if you are short you are short, not height challenged.
Try to bury it all you want but the world is made up of different races.
My comment was directed at bearbait's comment, which specifically mentioned anglos. Although I didn't entirely agree with your comment about illegal aliens, I didn't find it offensive or racist, just a statement of legitimate frustrations. Being bred out by illegals is something bearbait brings up frequently on multiple comment threads. You're right that bearbait may be referring to a few other groups as well such as southeast Asian. Perhaps he'd like to clarify. While many minorities do have more children than cacausians, I think continuously citing that as evidence of our country's downfall or the "canary in the coal mine" is insulting.
This political correctness is Bull Sh*t. The world is a cruel place at times and people need to Mature, and deal with it. Quit whining and running to tell. In my opinion Mormons, and Catholics 'breed' more than most. There is good and bad everywhere, a person just needs to be smart enough to recognize which is which.
I'm not surprised you don't see it at all, since your post is largely non-sensical. I have no problem with the phrase "canary in the coal mine," but I do have a problem with considering increasing populations of minorities to be that canary.
I'm going to wait for bearbait to speak for himself Ann. Considering how well you're defending him, I think he'd rather handle it himself.
Human population demands are crowding wildlife to the ends of their habitat, in Montana, Mexico, East Africa, the Middle East, anywhere in China and a thousand other places. The issue of preserving animals is NOT going to ever be solved as long as we have people breeding themselves out of a spot at the dinner table. I only pointed that out. I was not being a racist. I was being a realist. You will never recover animal populations as long as you, say, drain the West to cover the water needs of southern California, where the bulk of undocumented people of all races and national origin seem to end up (they know heat, and are not cold tolerant?). That is where wildlife people and volunteers place "drizzlers" to water big horn sheep of some unique sub species, and that is where the cougars camp out to eat big horn sheep: the only water source, which is the only way you can have sheep there, and in California, you can't kill a cougar, so the whole deal is like wiping your ass on a hoop. Meanwhile, the sheep bands have been driven off century old grazing areas so as to protect the big horns being decimated by cougars. The parameters of the discussion were set by idealists, not pragmatists, and that is a huge problem in this discussion. How to pragmatically have a huge, varied food program not based on feed lots and GMA food, and still have wildlife on their native habitat.
So two summers ago, the Feds and Oregon Fish and Wildlife found a dope grow in the Trout Creek mountains on the Nevada border. That is Sonoran country in Oregon. And the dope grow was run by undocumented Mexicans, as per the one they caught, and his naming of the two that escaped. But the living quarters in a cave they had fashioned for themselves was littered with the remains of several big horn sheep they had taken to eat, and some deer as well. That they were messing with a creek with ESA listed Lahotan cutthroat trout living in it, and were using pesticides and fertilizers in that creek water is an insult to the environment as well. Am I being a racist to say undocumented immigrants engaged in illegal drug production killed CITES protected animals to feed themselves? I just told you one of the ways, other than domestic sheep, that big horns are killed in Oregon, just as I said dealing with birth rates, population growth, and unrestrained immigration are a bigger threat to big horn sheep than regulated domestic sheep grazing. Name your poison. A McVilla in the meadow, a logging road to timberline, total protection of predators, no meaningful land management now allowed, resorts using foreign workers to control costs, unreasonable housing costs resulting in hot bed sleeping arrangements and over loaded sewage output from overcrowded housing, holy moley, the list is endless, and all of it has an impact on big horn sheep in some way. Too many people. Too little land. And no real, meaningful, defended borders, national imperative, to end the flow of undocumented immigrants, illegal aliens overstaying visas, all of which will result in the coming of extended family members, and they don't share your or my vision or hope for wildlife, wildlands, and public good. Not what they are looking for or want from the US, not why they came here. And not the solution to big horn survival in the wild.
Get out of the mindset that the problems for big horn sheep are not global, and must be settled in some Ranger station office. That is treating symptoms, not the disease, which may be our only choice for now. We are then just delaying attempts to solve the core problems.
I'll add one thing, you cite the Idaho law responsible for the statutory obligation that IDFG kill bighorns that come into contact with domestic sheep (the law also permits as much if bighorns are seen merely stepping foot on public land allotments grazed by domestic sheep).
I think it's worth mentioning that Jeff Siddoway, the Idaho legislator who sponsored the bill, grandstanded in support of his bill using specifically Marie Bulgin's false testimony that there was no evidence of transmission in the wild to garner the support that would pass the legislation.
I think you're right - this issue, the bighorn sheep issue, has brought the broader question regarding the (in)appropriateness of public land ranching into sharp focus. It needs more light.
Domestic sheep on bighorn sheep habitat on public lands is a clear and often fatal conflict to bighorn sheep. That is where I suggest we start addressing the issue.
Like it or not trying to protect predators and expect prey species to thrive with them is really dumb.
On private lands the interest of the private landowner is of utmost importance, but on public lands I disagree. Subsidizing the use of public lands in such a way that it precludes a native species such as bighorn sheep is wrong and bad public policy.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/science/biologists-home-in-on-bighorn-killing-bacteria/article769194/