Disease
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A potentially devastating virus has been discovered for the first time in Pacific salmon stocks of British Columbia. The disease, infectious salmon anemia (ISA), has devastated Atlantic salmon and salmon farms in Chile, but how the virus will effect Pacific salmon is unknown. The fear is that it could be devastating all along the west…
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The much touted vaccine that the woolgrowers have been promoting as a way to make bighorn and domestic sheep compatible is not even close to ready. While bighorn sheep are dying in Montana and Nevada, and while the herds in Hell’s Canyon and the Salmon River Canyon are suffering the long lasting effects of previous…
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Last night Idaho Public Television’s “Dialogue” program had a round table discussion about the bighorn sheep issue and Congressman Mike Simpson’s disease rider that is attached to the Fiscal Year 2012 – House Interior-Environment Appropriations Bill. On the panel, moderated by Marcia Franklin, was Margaret Soulen Hinson, president, American Sheep Industry Association; Neil Thagard, former president,…
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Well, the BLM has done it again, they’ve managed to wipe out another herd of bighorn sheep. A herd of California bighorn sheep in the Snowstorm Mountains of northern Nevada is the latest victim of disease caused by domestic sheep. While the Nevada Department of Wildlife hesitates to say whether interaction with domestic sheep is…
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This is what WWP calls “low hanging fruit” For the last several years I have been appealing grazing decision issued by the Ely District of the BLM and, over and over again, the District only considers alternatives which maintain the status quo even when they have identified problems on the allotments that are either caused…
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Montana and Wyoming infections and capture of elk. The last week has been filled with many stories about brucellosis and its impacts on wildlife and livestock. First, Montana has announced plans to capture and test elk for brucellosis then place radio collars on those females that test positive to see where they go and where…
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Don’t worry about the man behind the curtain. In so many ways the issue of brucellosis in bison and elk is similar to the issue of domestic sheep diseases and bighorn except the rationalization for killing wildlife is just the opposite. We now know that domestic sheep are responsible for disease issues in bighorn sheep…
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Western Watersheds Project’s litigation and recent scientific studies changing the playing field. Across the West domestic sheep operations threaten the viability of bighorn sheep populations and have caused serious declines because of the diseases they carry. Last winter there were ten populations that suffered from pneumonia outbreaks and many more are suffering the lingering effects…