Wild sheep and disease

[Oak]

January 2025 - Disease die-offs continue to ravage bighorn sheep. Advocates say feds left them ‘high and dry’ on the issue.

 

[Treeshark]

January 2025 - Disease die-offs continue to ravage bighorn sheep. Advocates say feds left them ‘high and dry’ on the issue.

Really interesting article, thanks for posting @Oak. This part is interesting:

“Colorado Parks and Wildlife can manipulate hunting licenses, improve habitat or move bighorn sheep, but when it comes to conflicts with domestic sheep on federal grazing lands, it is up to federal agencies to make changes.”

This speaks to a conflict I have discussed before- states manage the wildlife while the feds manage the land they require for their survival. With respect to Colorado bighorn management, this arrangement does not appear to be working well.

 

[Dsnow9]

Thanks for all the time and effort you put in Terry and thanks for posting the articles.

 

[Bluffgruff]

@Oak Are there any good options for the general public to put pressure on the federal agencies?

 

[bayoublaster7527]

Great piece. Thank you @Oak for bringing statewide attention to this important issue. Another example of the great work by the consummate professionals at CPW and passionate volunteers at RMBS.

 

[COEngineer]

@Oak Are there any good options for the general public to put pressure on the federal agencies?

Mountain Studies Institute (MSI) https://www.mountainstudies.org/ has a bighorn sheep monitoring program and has extremely knowledgeable staff and volunteers doing work and advocacy. CO chapter of BHA has been financially supporting them for three years.

 

[Oak]

@Oak Are there any good options for the general public to put pressure on the federal agencies?

There are probably not a lot of good options under the current administration, given their initial signaling of support for less oversight of public lands vs more oversight. Especially when NEPA is likely to lead to more stringent management of those lands. Likely the only effective pressure would be Congressional direction to prioritize processing of allotments with resource conflicts, along with the funding to do the work. As it is, the agencies have a free pass on the grazing programs, so there is no incentive to spend limited budgets there.

Mountain Studies Institute (MSI) https://www.mountainstudies.org/ has a bighorn sheep monitoring program and has extremely knowledgeable staff and volunteers doing work and advocacy. CO chapter of BHA has been financially supporting them for three years.

I worked with Dan to move the bighorn observation program to MSI years ago, and RMBS has been funding it annually since then (2018?). It has done a lot to bring public attention to the issue, and has provided valuable data that has contributed to our efforts on compensated permit waivers. The data will also prove valuable if/when NEPA is ever completed on grazing allotments. Here's an old article about the program.