The drama of Bighorn Sheep R14 has focused the challenge the Idaho Department of Fish and Game has in protecting bighorn sheep in Idaho where ranchers are grazing domestic sheep. Biologists and veterinarians agree that when in contact domestic sheep transmit diseases to the wild bighorns, which do not have resistance, though no evidence of direct transmission in the wild had been documented according to a state veterinarian who now acknowledges she was wrong and perhaps misleading. Wildlife managers around the West agree that the only way to protect and grow bighorn populations is to separate them from domestic sheep.
The Idaho Legislature has mandated the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to use dogs, herders and other tools to keep the animals apart but if they mix Fish and Game kills them to keep the bighorn away from other bighorns. This is standard policy around the West but there are few places where domestic sheep continue to graze in occupied bighorn habitat and the so called "best management practices" are used to keep them appart when there already is some distance between them. Only dispersing bighorn sheep have to be killed in these situations. But when the two occupy the same areas it's a lot harder and that's the case for R14, a native bighorn on the Salomon River.
Fish and Game is currently writing separation plans for 15 ranching operations around the state by Aug. 5 as required by the Legislature.
R14 is part of the Manning Bridge ram group, 11 rams who live near the Manning Bridge over the Salmon River east of Riggins.Five of the rams are radio collared, said Curt Mack a biologists with the Nez Perce tribe. The rams spent nine months near the bridge within a six mile reach of river roughly from Rough Creek at the Lake Creek Bridge to Flock Canyon. The group only leaves during the fall rut. During the rut (mid October to mid December), the rams moved upstream to interact with ewes. R14 for example, last fall during the rut, moved upstream around 30 miles, to interact with 4 of the 5 known ewe groups within this roughly 100 miles of the Salmon River, Mack said.
Here's a timeline of R14's life.
March, 14, 2008
R14 was darted and collared at the Manning Bridge on the Salmon River by researchers with the Nez Perce Tribe.
April 2008
Researchers see R14 along the Salmon and he is healthy.
May 18 – Monday
Rancher Mick Carlson saw R14 on his private land along Allison Creek, a tributary of the Salmon east of Riggins near his domestic sheep. Carlson called officials and reported the ram was ill and came within 50 to 75 yards of his sheep but that he did not observe nose to nose contact. Fish and Game assistant director Jim Unsworth asked Carlson to shoot R14, but Carlson refused.
May 19 – Tuesday
Fish and Game Biologists Mike Scott and Jeff Rohlman met with Carlson who showed them R14 laying down off the north side of the road at the mouth of Kelly Creek (upstream or east side). R14 was coughing and sneezing with nasal discharge, signs of pneumonia. They also indicated the ram looked to be in poor health. They called for a state veterinarian to taking health samples assuming R14 was too sick to travel and would stay bedded. But when the vet arrived R14 had gotten up and grazed up the mountain staying too far ahead of them to dart it. They tried to shoot the ram but missed.
May 21 – Thursday
Scott, one of the state’s most experienced bighorn sheep biologists, made several efforts to find R14 but couldn’t.
May 22 – Friday
Fish and Game and Nez Perce biologists were able to follow R14 with telemetry but never could see him.
May 23 – Saturday
R-14 was spotted by plane with another bighorn, which biologists had hoped would be avoided.
May 24 – Sunday
Rohlman and Nez Perce biologist Curt Mack stalked to within 125 yards of R14 and the other ram but could not get a clear shot. R14 headed down Kelly Creek and up the Manning Crevice. There the biologists detected signals from two other rams in the 11-member Manning Bridge ram group, which indicated that R14 was now mixing with the entire group, the worst possible scenario.
June 2
R14 was still on top of Kelly Mountain. Efforts to remove him are ongoing.
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Is that May 18, 2009? Hey...doesn't this correspond fairly close
to the swine flu outbreak?
Mammas, don't let your babies grow up to date pigs.
hmmm
"but there are few places where domestic sheep continue to graze in occupied bighorn habitat"
that's because when domestic sheep move in and graze an area, the bighorn habitat becomes no longer occupied ~
Where are the big anime eyes? The Ottoman's not feeling his Ertz
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
Mistakesman Writers.
up the mountain staying to far ahead of them
****
Barker, lern how too frikn spell!
Remember, you are being OVERPAID to do this.
Conflict of Interest
Rocky Barker says pretty definitively :
"no evidence of direct transmission in the wild has been documented."
and with all due respect - you've been carrying these guys' water on this issue for a long time Rocky. The 'benefit of the doubt' in your reporting has always been with the sheepmen. I have to admit, you're reporting has been coming around a little bit. But ~ you just had to include this :
"no evidence of direct transmission in the wild has been documented."
It's sort of been odd because you're right on with the science on climate change - there's a willingness to be critical/skeptical of flat-earthers' denial of science there -- but with this issue, IMO - you've granted the 'flat-earth society' folk - the industry - carte blanke access to real-estate in your reports - even when the claims they've made are flagrantly false, and easily fact-check. Why has that been the case ?
It's been rough holding my lip on this one, I wanted to show you the study (completed in 1994) - I wanted you to see the truth of it --- even beyond the glaring & immediate corruption that it demonstrates. That this industry has held disproportionate power over this state's political process - even its academic/research pursuits. That the truth that they tell is not premised on fact, economics, science, nor anything but the ideology of their belief that they have a god-given right to exercise their political power - in spiteful contempt for science, law, and the commonly-held value of America's public land and wildlife heritage. But would it have made a difference Rocky ? really ? Will it now ? Or will we get more flat-earth industry-sponsored apologetic real-estate granted this powerful Idaho industry in the Idaho Statesman ? - to the detriment of Idaho's valued bighorn sheep.
New Information
Still waiting on that phone call.
Conflict of brain lobes...keep it up, kid.
yours.
If I have Pretty Mean Spirits, it's that time.
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
Tip toeing through the sagebrush
I guess we can now see why you are *the* Media Director of the WWP.
Maybe if you buy Rocky lunch he'll "call you".
There's a nice Basque restraurant in town that does a great lamb dish that Rocky will ravish! You know what they say when if comes to newspaper journalist, "Food talks, bs walks".
****
Side note- Ertz, since you're the media wizard for WWP can you tell us all where this land devastation is going on? Tell us a 'specific' area of destruction due to grazing and I would like to go out and visit it to witness it first-hand (maybe others would too).
I'm not used to this
But I am going to second pimp's motion. Please give detailed directions to some devastation that we can see. I am not really even challenging you, because I know it exists, but I would like to be educated. I won't become the zealot you are, but I am a big proponent of responsible use. I just don't have a lot of use for radicals, in either camp.
Truth is hard to come by
education the first step toward truth
PJ wrote: "Please give detailed directions to some devastation that we can see. I am not really even challenging you, I know it exists, but I would like to be educated"
If you already know "it" exists but need directions to find "it" why should anyone take what you claim to "know" seriously?
PJ wrote: "I just don't have a lot of use for radicals, in either camp."
But last month on the 27th he wrote in response to a reasonable and factual comment noting the ecological difference between bison and cattle: "This is America, and as much as you libs hate this, not a dictatorship."
You must have no use for yourself, radical.
It doesn't take a radical to spot a future despot
Truth is hard to come by
i submitted a comment
but it is under review given the number of links i added - which include directions to the landscapes. i hope you'll get out there and visit these public places that belong as much to you as anyone else
the landscape included the Big Lost River Range, Pahsimeroi country, Owyhee Country, and others - really it's everywhere. just visit the landscape
Use Tinyurl when you set up your links
It's as easy as cut and paste. Big links really screw up the formatting in this blog.
Truth is hard to come by
You sure you didn't say something naughty? SUUURRRRE!
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
Trash
Everywhere? Grazing devastation is everywhere???? What I see everywhere is trash.
My weekend included an outing that found human trash littering the landscape.
NO damage by grazing. I did see lots of cows grazing though- peacefully (potential recruits for the Idaho Peace Coaltion). For example just along I84 between m' crib and mtn home there are cows grazing. And you know what? They are not all hanging out at the watering hole. They are not standing in the creeks, and blah blah blah like a poster says in this blog.
Then in another area in the foothills here I could see cows on one side of the fence and no cows on the other side. Not much difference in the two sides. Still early in the season though-- I expect the grazing side will have less fire fuel by August.
*****
I vote that the environmentalists spend their legal fees on educating people about not littering- and since that doesn't work, but those millions of dollars to productive use by hiring the homeless and deserating unskilled unemployed people to pick up trash.
Credibility
Cattle pound the uplands too - but the water is what most wildlife depend upon - and that was where the context was cast. Now, if I'm understanding you correctly, you just cited the SR Plain on I84 as an example of why cattle are benign on a landscape. If this is the case as you suggest it, then you have zero credibility. Do you know the history of that landscape ? Are you aware of what it's ecological character was like before livestock? Apparently not, as if you did you would recognize the profound irony of your little anecdote. As for the fire, it takes an extremely reductionist (mis)understanding of landscape ecology (even fire eco) to suggest that the ecologically bankrupt cheat blasted wastelands are of any meaningful significance to a healthy wildlife community. It's true, I'll grant that pounded dirt doesn't burn ~ but if that's the goal - then we're speaking 2 entirely different languages. The exotic species that follow such landscape abuse include mostly cheat (and other opportunist annuals) - one must consider, beyond one season of landscape level defoliation, what the consequence will be with regard to wildlife, and even fire potential. Cheat-carpeted landscapse wick & exacerbate fire to a much larger degree than the bunchgrasses, complex sagebrush, etc. diverse structures harboring & characteristic of native vegetation & living soil communities that persist in the relative absence of disturbance. These native communities also hold moisture much longer throughout the system and into the dry season, which assures a shorter window of opportunity for initial ignition.
Unless you are content to suggest that relatively lifeless wastelands diminished of the character once graced by, managed for such in perpetuity because of dirt's relative fire-resistence, is a favorable management objective - more so than the rich & vibrant native plant & wildlife communities that characterize the public landscapes that we envision prompting toward the process of rest & restoration, then we just have a difference of opinion - and it's better left at that.
Kuna Caveman
Yeah, but can you say that in 20 words or less?
The funny part I'll pull is "the history of that landscape". Do you mean back in the days of the Yellowstone Caldera? Or back to the woolly mammoth days? Or just back to the Oregon Trail days? Or my favorite time, the era of Kuna Cavemen.
******
The context was someone wrote cattle stay in one place and don't move around- that's not true.
The context was someone wrote ranchers don't work- that's not true.
The context is you are implying cattle are the only reason for cheatgrass- that's not true.
The context is you remind us the public lands belong to all of us- and I accept using some of MY portion for the purposes of cheap grazing rights. I also accept there are some places that are more valuable than using them as grazing--- but it seems anti-grazers are NOT willing to accept anythign less than their objective of ridding all public land of livestock.
BTW, are you aware land where The Statesman now sits used to be at the bottom of a huge lake... Time is relative and all creatures evolve with time and all landscapes evolve too. And yes, we (you and others) obviously have difference of opinion- you want a fairy tail and I'm content with reality and compromise. But IF you expand your horizons to see the light, maybe you and your sheep (see the pun) will de able to divert your efforts and money into more productive things (like picking cheatgrass seeds).
That was a run-on PARAGRAPH and not very clear anyhow.
I get lost by the 2nd or 3rd comma as to where it goes. You can do better.
Your English teacher called and said, "Dude"?
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
tip toeing through reality
Besides revealing yourself just to be an alter ego of political_junkie you reveal a profound lack of understanding about the media.
Mr Ertz pointed to an article published by one of the largest and most respected media outfits in the world, the Associated Press. That article contained real reporting exposing waste, fraud, and conflict of interest by a state salaried employee based on documents, interviews and analysis. Ertz pointed out that Rocky, claiming the banner of journalism, failed to preform basic reporting on this conflict of interest or talk with any scientist with a different view about domestic to native sheep disease transmission.
Meanwhile your wizardry, udapimp, consists of rude and ignorant commentary on a regional, biased blog. Fitting that Rocky and you are huge fans of each other.
I didn't realize that the Associated Press was juried
Seriously, you can claim something as being unvarnished truth because it was published by the AP? Bwa ha ha ha ha ha. OMG I have tears coming out of my eyes I am laughing so hard.
Truth is hard to come by
I'll bet they faced enough juries in the last 10 years...
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
I don't recall flagging Otto. Maybe I should thank UP or PJ?
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
I only flag for truly objectionable content
Disagreeing with me or even being off subject isn't nearly enough. I haven't seen a flaggable post ever in the blog forums.
Truth is hard to come by
Wir sind weder unsere eigenen Kinder noch sind wir doppelgangers
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Nichts überall stützen den ganzen Tag und sehr gut.
Danke für das Schreien.
See Sunday story
I have the study from Colorado that Marie missed
the study in the story
the study in the story was her own institution's study at the Cain Vet lab - people she worked with -- it was her own people that did the paper - people she was working with at the time, that's why it's so egregious that she claims to have missed it.
plus - the idea that she "missed it" is indicative of your general approach to the matter - the benefit of the doubt goes to industry to the point of absurdity - which is why the people who had the study did not feel comfortable giving you the story - when did you get the paper ? - you are widely regarded by those in the professional community as biased in favor of industry - not just by those of us on the short end of it.
think about that Rocky.
it'll be interesting to see how you smooth it over for "Marie" on Sunday
Green
Ertz, did you eat some Japanese beef with Mad Cow Disease?
I personally can't stand Barkers writing- but to say "he is widely regarded by those in the professional community as biased in favor of industry" - you're kidding right? If he's not on your board of directors, then he must be in favor of industry??? What are you talking about? I would like to see anything that says Barker or the Statesman is "in favor" of the sheep/beef industry. Geez, I might have to change my opinion about him....
As the "media director" of a big legal monster, you're really making you're case look bad here.
****
If you're worried about the bighorn, maybe you and your staff can spend your resources on finding a vaccine for the domestic sheep and the wild sheep- problem solved. All the happy sheep will be able to play together and there will be no question or unwanted deaths. Peace bro!
You might also tell us all what WWP has done to benefit the bighorn-- not counting the legal court krappola. Planted any habitat forage? Hazed any predator wolves to protect the lambs, maybe??? Done anything other than milk the donor mailing lists to find more money for yourself? The WWP site only has legal stuff on it, so maybe as the "media director" you might be able to share some warm fuzzy news with us and how the WWP is actually more active in the field than they are in the courtroom.
In Advocacyland it is always better to destroy than cure $BLINGY
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Supporting nothing everywhere all day and very well.
Thank you for hollering.
Tune In Sunday ?
is it reasonable to believe that Marie Bulgin would be totally unaware of a study coming out of her own lab - while she worked there - that completely repudiates her central claims concerning transmission made publicly on several occasions before the media, as testimony at the statehouse, and on more than one occasion under oath before a federal judge ?
why, if Marie Bulgin just let that study slip by, did no one at the clinic involved in the study - or who was aware of its existence - let her know of its existence and that the public claims she was making were repudiated by the findings of her own lab ?
Why does Rocky refer to "Dr. Marie Bulgin" by the first name - as "Marie" when speaking about this subject of his journalistic enterprise ? Why for all of the coverage Rocky has invested in this domestic/bighorn sheep issue has Rocky never questioned the inherent conflict of interest of the President of the Woolgrowers Association, serving as head of a research center conducting studies that implicate federal public land management policy, for which her trade association is commercially interested ?
will any these questions be answered in the Sunday Idaho Statesman that Rocky refers to ?
OR - is the more appropriate question :
How will Rocky Barker smooth over this flagrant violation of professional ethics, seeming industry-interested cover-up, or next to impossible professional oversight ?
It'll be interesting.
It's not a soap opera...I still win.
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Flagging is approval.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.
I rest my case.
Until it hurts to sit here of course, then I move it.
how about some science before action
Sick bighorn didn't have deadly bacteria, Idaho officials say - STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 08/12/09
http://www.idahostatesman.com/localnews/story/862901.html
You got a lady to blind me with any, by the way? : )
Yeah, I saw that and ate it up but didn't think I should dig the thread up. +1 U got PTS
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There is no life in Idaho...it is a mirror site on god's server. You were dreaming but it is over. Go to your residence and await our commands and THEN we will restore control...