Montana missouri breaks sheep 2025 regs.

[Hem]

Bitterroot's bighorn sheep see 'significant' mortality over winter

Researchers in the Bitterroot Valley have seen significant mortality in bighorn sheep over the winter, with all collared rams in the Skalkaho herd reported to have died.

ravallirepublic.com

This is depressing. mtmuley

That's rotten news.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Its impossible to have bighorns damn near...too many stupid people, "Merica, gotta have a domestic goat or a sheep on my horse ghetto".

How are you certain thats the problem? Asking to understand, not argue.

 

[BuzzH]

How are you certain thats the problem? Asking to understand, not argue.

Well, I killed a ram in that unit last year and this picture was sent to me by the bio after I killed my ram. Its near the upper cattleguard on the gird creek road:

Also, right across from the highway where you drive up Gird creek there's a horse ghetto with a black and white goat, or at least there was all last year. I was sort of hoping that the FWP talked with them about it, I saw bighorns within 300 yards of that horse ghetto last fall (all I could do not to torch that P.O.S. goat).

The article states it too...and I was in contact with the biologist all last summer and fall when the rams first started dying in July and August.

 

[BigHornRam]

The article also says that they are putting on an educational meeting at the Bitterroot River Inn for hobby flock sheep and goat owners. I hope it is well attended. My gut says it won't get many to show up.

 

[Hunting Wife]

With “homesteading” being so trendy with the transplants, and Montana being perceived as the last remnant of the “Wild West”, I doubt many are going to be receptive to state employees infringing on their rights to have their unpasteurized goat milk, make their goat cheese and sell their organic goat milk body products.

 

[Oak]

It's Brett French. What parts don't you like?

Change in thinking

Years ago, mingling with domestic sheep was often blamed for bighorn die-offs. The livestock carry pathogens the bighorns were susceptible to, potentially leading to pneumonia outbreaks that could wipe out entire herds.

Keep domestic and wild sheep separate, wildlife experts postulated, and the bighorns should be OK. One outcome of this philosophy is that wandering bighorn rams, an animal for which it is hard for hunters to draw a tag to kill, were shot by wildlife officials out of fear the animal might spread disease, including two rams from the HD 622 herd a decade ago.

This section above implies that commingling might not be an issue. It also implies that killing wandering rams might not be a sound management strategy.

“I talked with most of the domestic producers in lower 622,” wrote Brent Roeder, a Montana State University Extension sheep specialist, in an email. “They say they have never seen a wild sheep next to their domestics.”

One of the larger producers in the area sold out this winter as coyotes cut production, Roeder said. That leaves only two sheep producers in the region, one of which is farther to the west.

It's pure naivete or intentionally misleading to say that most producers haven't seen bighorns so the issue must not stem from contact with domestic sheep: 1) producers are not watching their sheep 24/7; 2) there is not a lot of incentive for producers to report contact, knowing that they could be blamed for something like what has happened in 622; 3) saying that there are only two producers left in the region is probably not accurate. Counting hobby/4H flocks? Domestic goats? Looking 35 miles out from the occupied bighorn sheep range? Managers don't like to look at the issue at the appropriate scale, because it's an inconvenient reality that bighorn rams can and do move over vast distances, making it feel hopeless. I have several pictures of a CO ram that went on a walkabout in 2023 over the course of 4 months. He traveled a minimum of 90 miles following the first photo taken, but was heading back home the last time he was seen.

The ram pictured below had been collared by CPW. The collar malfunctioned and had not given a location for the ram for 1.5 years prior to this incident on Oct. 21, 2016. The last location from the collar was over 40 straight-line miles from the ram's final resting place. I took the live photo of him below on Oct. 31, 2015, about 41 miles from the sheep pen. He had to cross the Colorado River and I-70 on his way to Loma.

Twenty-five outbreaks of respiratory disease have been documented in Montana since 1979.

Yet the researchers found no exposure of the HD 622 herd to the main respiratory bug — Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae.

What they found, however, was plenty of scary sounding pathogens, including: Mannheimia haemolytica/glucosida, Mannheimia species/ruminalis, non-hemolytic Bibersteinia trehalose and contagious ecthyma.

The focus on Movi has perhaps caused us to forget that other bacteria can cause die-offs in the absence of Movi, especially Mannheimia haemolytica. It happened 3 years ago with the Devils Canyon herd in Wyoming. The absence of Movi proves or disproves nothing.

Devil’s Canyon bighorn sheep herd experiencing disease outbreak | Wyoming Game & Fish Department

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has documented a disease outbreak in the Devil's Canyon bighorn sheep herd northeast of Lovell. “Since Oct. 14, Game and Fish has documented 37 bighorn sheep mortalities in the Devil’s Canyon herd, which constitutes approximately 10 percent of the...

wgfd.wyo.gov

I had a sheep biologist friend send me the link BigHornRam shared over the weekend, with the comment: "Some of the quotes sound like pretty naive thinking they can find a way to coexist."

I get it. Domestic sheep are not going away, so you either make the best of a bad situation or throw your hands in the air and give up. But let's not lose focus on where the problem lies. As long as we have domestic sheep doing whatever they want to do, we will continue to have die-offs. Articles written like the one above cast doubt on that fact and do bighorn sheep no favors.

 

[Oak]

I missed the last page of posts before my reply above. Clearly there is a hobby flock issue based on what Buzz posted.

 

[Forkyfinder]

Clearly there is a hobby flock issue based on what Buzz posted.

The most irritating part - no article, agency, journalist, or otherwise will say it outright.

The picture buzz posted should be sent to the author (Brett French). Frankly - i thought about doing it when he responded, but i dont want to get a biologist in trouble for communicating a concern.

 

[Oak]

The most irritating part - no article, agency, journalist, or otherwise will say it outright.

The picture buzz posted should be sent to the author (Brett French). Frankly - i thought about doing it when he responded, but i dont want to get a biologist in trouble for communicating a concern.

I sent that pic a few minutes ago to the same bio friend who sent me the link over the weekend. He said the same thing you did about Brett French, and I replied the same thing you said about the bio communication.