HR 2584

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The Wild Sheep Foundation is deeply committed to identifying and promoting science based solutions to disease transmission from domestic sheep to bighorn sheep. We are so very concerned because pneumonia in bighorn sheep, is very often fatal. If the exposed adult bighorn sheep do survive, then they often lose several successive years of lamb recruitment as the lambs die of pneumonia. Pneumonia has been identified as the single leading cause of the loss of bighorn sheep in Hells Canyon along the Idaho, Oregon, Washington border.

The Wild Sheep Foundation has spent nearly $2 million dollars researching the disease transmission from domestic sheep to bighorn sheep at Washington State University. While the results unequivocally document that disease transmission happens, they also document there is no ill effects to the domestic sheep, but an overwhelming proportion of the bighorn sheep exposed to pneumonia die from the infection. We are not aware of any similar efforts by the domestic sheep producers to spend their own funds to address how to control pneumonia in domestic sheep.

In Idaho Bighorn sheep habitat lies along the major river canyons and the bighorn sheep move up and down the river corridors. There is enough movement between groups that the entire Hells Canyon population is considered one Meta-population. The Payette National Forest, which had been allowing domestic sheep grazing in Hells Canyon, recently completed a six year effort to scientifically determine how much habitat the bighorn sheep populations on the forest use and how much domestic sheep grazing would need to be reduced to establish separation between the species. They determined that the domestic sheep grazing on the forest would need to be reduced by 70% to separate the species to reduce the risk of disease transmission to acceptable limits. The Woolgrowers have not challenged the science supporting the Forest Service decision. The Woolgrowers have placed their time and funds, not in research for solutions, but in lobbying for legislative relief from the application of science to solve the problem.

Senator Reed, the Idaho Chapter of the Wild Sheep Foundation has been an active participant in a collaborative processes Governor Otter started to seek management solutions to the conflict domestic sheep have with bighorn sheep. The Idaho Woolgrowers left one of those collaborative tables to secure legislative relief from the Idaho legislature. The law that resulted requires Idaho Department of Fish and Game to remove bighorn sheep from domestic sheep allotments to create and maintain separation. Bighorn sheep can’t stand the weight of being the solution to the domestic sheep industry problem much longer. The Forest Service has acknowledged that bighorn sheep are currently at about 10% of their historic levels. We have supported the development of science base solutions and of collaborative efforts that are based in science. But the bighorn sheep populations do can’t stand the impacts of close association with domestic sheep. We ask you to insure that none of the language developed by the House of Representatives be included in the final appropriations bill that restricts the federal land management agencies from reducing domestic sheep grazing on public lands to create separation.

Congressman Simpson, when we met with him in late August of this year, told us he advocated a five year moratorium on further federal agency reductions of domestic sheep grazing, to create separation between the species, because he was convinced that a vaccine would be developed within 5 years. The Wild Sheep Foundation has been in contact with the lead researcher it has supported at Washington State University and he reports that it will be 10 and perhaps 15 years before a solution is ready. We urge you to act to reject the House of Representatives proposal and allow federal agencies to continue to evaluate each instance where domestic sheep are in conflict with bighorn sheep through the development of science based decisions, using the knowledge and tools developed on the Payette National Forest.

Sincerely,

Brad Morlock
President
Idaho Wild Sheep Foundation