If the animals come into contact, domestic sheep can pass a deadly bacteria to bighorns, which the native animal can in turn bring back to its herd and potentially cause widespread die-off.<\/p>\n
Cattle and other livestock do not carry the same threat to bighorns.<\/p>\n
In recent years, values have clashed between ranchers, whose livelihoods depend on grazing on public lands, and conservationists, who are fighting for the long-term survival of bighorn sheep.<\/p>\n
The issue came to a head in Southwest Colorado in 2012, when the Forest Service began reviewing whether to renew grazing permits in the Weminuche Wilderness, which belong to Ignacio rancher J. Paul Brown.<\/p>\n In February 2016, the Forest Service released a draft environmental impact statement that determined sheep grazing would continue in the Weminuche, despite clear concerns raised in the report for the bighorns.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re mandated for multiple-use on this landscape, which is deemed as suitable for grazing,\u201d Jared Whitmer, the Forest Service\u2019s project manager for the EIS, said at the time.<\/p>\n A final decision on the matter was supposed to be announced in summer 2017. But the Forest Service has repeatedly delayed its final determination.<\/p>\n Recently, the Forest Service listed its sheep grazing analysis as \u201ccanceled.\u201d<\/p>\n Kara Chadwick, forest supervisor for the San Juan National Forest, said the sheep grazing analysis was listed as canceled because the project is on hold while various agencies gather more data on the domestic sheep-bighorn issue.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause we are collecting blood work and radio-collar data for an undetermined timeframe, no analysis is currently happening and so the project shows as canceled in the database,\u201d Chadwick wrote in an email.<\/p>\n Recently, Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been radio-collaring the elusive high-country animals to gain a better understanding of how bighorns use the high country, and if they travel into Brown\u2019s grazing allotments.<\/p>\n Chadwick deferred all questions about the radio-collaring project to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Scott Wait, a senior terrestrial biologist for CPW, did not return calls seeking comment for this story.<\/p>\n Joe Lewandowski, spokesman for CPW, said in October that the sample size for bighorn collaring so far is small, and there\u2019s not much data at this point.<\/p>\n But conservation advocates like Meyers said the science is clear that domestic sheep create a serious danger to the long-term survival of bighorns.<\/p>\n Meyers said the Forest Service\u2019s own EIS in 2016, although it recommends allowing grazing to continue, says renewing those permits would come at a high risk to the bighorn sheep herds.<\/p>\n The Forest Service, in that study, recommended that domestic sheep and bighorns be separated, but Meyers said that isn\u2019t realistic to continue to graze domestic sheep in close proximity to bighorns, an animal that\u2019s known to wander.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on the analysis in 2016, if they renewed those permits, they would be in violation of their own forest plan,\u201d Meyers said. \u201cPresumably, that\u2019s why they continue to delay the decision. And it\u2019s a tough decision to make.\u201d<\/p>\n The Weminuche Wilderness is Colorado\u2019s largest wilderness area at 760 square miles. The Forest Service\u2019s proposed decision in 2016 would keep 50,000 acres open as summer range for about 2,200 of Brown\u2019s domestic sheep.<\/p>\n But in the area that extends from the northern end of Missionary Ridge toward the Pine River, there\u2019s the potential for habitat overlap for the estimated 500 native bighorns spread out in about three herds.<\/p>\n Dan Parkinson, an advocate with Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said the more study that\u2019s going into bighorns, the more researchers are learning about the large size of their ranges.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re learning they need elbow room,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n One radio-collared bighorn was tracked traveling from the Pine River all the way to Highland Mary Lakes near Silverton. The sheep made the trip through rugged, mountainous terrain, about a 21 air-mile journey, twice, Parkinson said.<\/p>\n And domestic sheep also have been known to wander.<\/p>\n In October, the Forest Service and Parks and Wildlife were alerted of a stray domestic sheep from another herder, not Brown, that was dangerously close to a bighorn herd in the Twilight Range, in another area of the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n Forest Service and Parks and Wildlife crews, trudging into a snowstorm, were unable to find the domestic sheep. After the weather cleared, crews used a helicopter to track it. The sheep was eventually located and killed.<\/p>\n \u201cThese agencies know this is a potentially deadly situation for bighorns,\u201d Parkinson said. \u201cWe need separation, or it\u2019s a matter of time until we see a herd die-off.\u201d<\/p>\n