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“We’re basically playing chicken with the feds. It’s basically more like extortion, . . .” Rep. Dan Zwonitzer (R-Cheyenne)- This session of the Wyoming legislature has been one to nurse grudges when it comes to livestock and efforts to curb its harmful side effects. The legislature passed a bill to criminalize the gathering of data…
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Yes, it looks like pneumonia. It usually is. It comes from domestic sheep most of the time. On December 15, Ken Cole reported in the News, “Bighorn Sheep Near the North Entrance of Yellowstone National Park are Dying from Pneumonia.” Well, it continues. Now Brett French reports in the Missoulian that 30 are now dead.…
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Bighorn sheep near the northern entrance of Yellowstone National Park are dying from pneumonia. Pneumonia outbreaks in bighorn sheep are often associated with contact with domestic sheep or goats which carry many pathogens that cause pneumonia in bighorn sheep but do not affect domestic sheep or goats. According to a press release by Montana FWP,…
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Just a week and a half after hearing arguments in a case brought by Idaho Wool Growers Association; American Sheep Industry Association; Public Lands Council; Wyoming Wool Growers Association; Carlson Company, Inc.; Shirts Brothers Sheep; and Colorado Wool Growers Association, against the Payette National Forest’s decision to close 70% of the domestic sheep grazing on the…
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It may already be too late Throughout the west, bighorn sheep are seeking out mates and the rams are giving an incredible display by butting heads in competition for ewes. This is a very visible spectacle in the Gardiner Basin of Montana that lies just north of Yellowstone National Park which is filled with many…
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Bighorn sheep in the Mojave Desert of California and Nevada have been dying of pneumonia for some months now but, as with many of these outbreaks, the original source of infection hasn’t been conclusively identified. Some reports noted that an angora goat had been shot by a hunter and that it may have been the…
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Suspected to have come from a domestic goat- The entire population of bighorn sheep in the Mohave National Preserve could die from pneumonia transmitted, probably, by a lone domestic Angora goat found in the desert near where the outbreak originated. The number of bighorn near Old Dad Mountain (200 to 300) has clearly declined and…
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I recently visited Yellowstone National Park and, while there, my father and I used a friend’s place as a base camp in Gardiner, Montana. From there we would drive about 10 miles to the Park where we watched wildlife, took photographs, and just enjoyed some of the solitude that Yellowstone provides during this part of…
Author
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.