Bighorns shot after wandering away from Greenhorn Mountains

[manny15]

Bighorns shot after wandering away from Greenhorn Mountains

ALDER - Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens have shot six of seven bighorn sheep that wandered from their new home in the Greenhorn Mountains.

The sheep were destroyed as part of an agreement established in the environmental assessment the agency put together before reintroducing bighorns into the Greenhorn Mountains a couple of years ago.

"We are following what we said we would do," said Kurt Alt, FWP's Region 3 wildlife manager. ''If we don't do what we said we would do, it's going to make it more difficult the next time we try to establish bighorns somewhere else in the state.''

The department has taken flack over its decision to kill the bighorns from members of the Gallatin Wildlife Association. That group says it's unfair that bighorn sheep are denied access to large tracts of public land because of a few domestic sheep ranchers who use those areas for their herds' summer grazing.

State wildlife officials want to keep the wild and domestic sheep apart to ensure that the bighorns don't contract a disease and bring it back to the rest of the herd. Ranchers worry about bighorn rams breeding their domestic ewes.


Alt said the environmental assessment that drew the guidelines the agency is using for the reintroduction was completed with public comment. The agency still has strong support for the reintroduction from sportsmen's groups, he said.

The bighorn sheep are part of a new population the state is attempting to build in the Greenhorn Mountains near Alder. Over the last two years, about 80 sheep have been moved into the area.

For the most part, they've stayed put.

''There have been a few forays,'' said Alt. ''They tend to go back though.''

The sheep that were destroyed over the last two weekends didn't return to the Greenhorn Mountains.

If the bighorns wander into areas where they'd have to share the range with domestic sheep, state biologists are required to either attempt to capture the animals or destroy them. Biologists had already attempted to capture the sheep.

 

[Bambistew]

As unfrotunate as this is, unless you can get rid of the sheep ranchers (yeah right) the best thing they can do is keep the wild ones form being in contact with the live ones and infecting the rest of the introduced heard.

 

[bustinbucks]

A lousy day huntin- there ain't nothing better

So let me get this straight -they are to kill the WILD SHEEP if they move off their range-
that means if the DOMESTIC SHEEP move off their range they are to be killed also?????

this would only be fair!!!!

yea right- bleeding hearts for money maken domestic sheep
if they could find a way to get money for the BIG HORNS well you know the rest- probally get paid to run their sheep there
public lands 'owned by the entire population'
BIG HORN SHEEP 'just looked after by the goverment'

 

[kilbuc]

If I'm not mistaken these were wild sheep introduced into a new area and part of the agreement was if they wandered onto adjacent areas with domestic sheep it was the responsibility of the Wildlife Agency to remove/kill. Seems like they were just living up to the approved intro plan. There are still wild sheep in the intro area. Now it would be different if the domestic sheep moved onto historic wild sheep range but this is not the case.

from the "Heartland of Wyoming"

 

[pinenut]

I'm curious where you have found some rangeland that is not "historic wild sheep range." I'm pretty sure the entire West was historic bighorn range, and although I know nothing about the area in question here, I'm really confident that all areas adjacent to a place Montana relocated sheep to would have been historically occupied by wild sheep. Although I support some activities ranchers do, I think it is way past the time we should allow them to graze animals on public lands. I get a big kick every time I hear somebody whine about there being too many elk in an area, and that these elk are competing with the range cows. C'mon people. These people should go on the Fishlake National Forest and see what all the riverbottoms look like in areas before, and then after, they move the cows in. It is unbelievable what 200 range cows can do in a weeks time. You think that is crazy, how about a couple of bands of 10,000 sheep each on the Wyoming Range or Strawberry Ridge or anywhere else they allow mountain maggots to roam.

 

[RLH]

personally, i like to see this. i don't live there or anything, but here in Az. they introduced rocky mt sheep here 30 or so years ago in the rough country in the east central part of the state. actually new mex put some close to the state line and some migrated into Az. they got a little foothold, so Az. turned some more loose and started managing them. now they've migrated over 100 miles from where they introduced em into country that hasn't had sheep in recorded history. there were some desert sheep prehistorically probably. anyway, now we have sheep all over hell in some places. where i hunt deer we see rams every day and have to hunt hard to find a buck. where the sheep have moved into, there are absolutley no deer anymore. sheep have pushed em plum out. i have no problem with bighorns. wish i could get a tag. but letting animals get started in places that they have no historical attachment too is about the same as introducing exotics, in my book. in the aformentioned article, there may have been sheep there before, i don't know. and i don't know all the particulars, but to me, i agree with removing them if they wander into unwanted places. seems to be a good sign that they didn't like it where they were planted. i think there are a lot of animals that have disappeared from historic range just "because". no real scientific explantation for it. trying to keep them there may be a waste of time and effort that could be spent on more worthy projects.