Love the title! I joined this forum because I saw a conversation about the PAUSE Act and as a native Coloradan and small "hobby" farmer it definitely concerns me.
One thing I find heartening in this community is the desire by hunters to come together with ranchers and famers on this issue. I'm not a hunter myself, but most of the folks I know are hunters and I grew up eating deer, elk, ducks, and geese that my dad shot every fall. I started raising packgoats a few years back and legislation like this could not only hurt me directly, but could hurt hunters indirectly since most of the packgoats I raise are sold to hunters.
One thing that concerns me in this thread is the attitude espoused by MtGomer who says:
They have made it a point to become our enemies by trying to privatize elk hunting across the west and lying about and trying to dismiss science that shows that their domestic sheep are incompatible with bighorns.
I don't know anything about privatizing elk hunting, but I don't believe domestic sheep grazing is totally incompatible with bighorns, nor that sheep producers have been 100% at fault in bighorn disease issues. I'll explain more in a minute.
Organizations like the stock growers and wool growers are on the front lines of trying to turn our country into Europe as far as hunting goes, but I respect your decision to white knight for them if that’s what you choose.
Beautiful Ram in your photo. How someone can have that experience and then be so triggered by someone not cucking for groups that nearly exterminated bighorns, and groups that throw millions of dollars into propaganda so they can keep diseasing bighorns, is lost on me. These groups pay lobbyists to have a year round presence in state capitals and DC, so they can continue doing things like running domestics in the San Juans.
I don't know of anyone in the stock or woolgrowing business who wants to end hunting. These "groups" did not exterminate bighorns. Bighorns were nearly wiped out around the turn of the 20th century by overhunting and yes, disease from livestock, but this was long before the days of organized agricultural groups. The devastation was caused by carelessness and ignorance. Unregulated hunting and grazing wreaked havoc on wildlife and ecosystems all over the west and was a major reason why the US Forest Service was created. Since that time, there has been a concerted effort by the government to balance wildlife and ecosystem needs with historic economic activities which are vital to those who live out west and vital to domestic production. Most of the wool we use in the U.S. is imported, which I think is a real shame.
I grew up in the San Juans (Lake City) and sheep grazing has gone on uninterrupted there for over 100 years. Nevertheless, the area never experienced a bighorn sheep die-off. Domestic and wild sheep co-existed peacefully for a century until the Wild Sheep Foundation and government agencies got involved in the 1990's and created conflict. The WSF and government recently saw fit to start collaring, trapping, and tracking bighorns in the San Juans that until that time had never had a problem. Testing showed that these bighorns were carrying domestic sheep pathogens (M.ovi among others) without harm. They'd probably been carrying these bacteria with them for 100 years and living with it quite happily, which is in fact a best case scenario. Now that the government is harassing the bighorns, I won't be shocked if they experience a devastating pneumonia outbreak in the next few years. It will of course be blamed on domestic sheep.
I'm convinced that there is more to bighorn die-offs than the mere presence of sheep pathogens. They are certainly a factor, but not the only factor. I may not be a hunter, but I am passionate about the importance of preserving bighorn sheep. I joined the Colorado Wild Sheep Working Group in 2019 because I was observing patterns in disease outbreaks that no one was talking about. For example, in 2017 there were two pneumonia outbreaks in bighorn sheep herds that had previously tested healthy and for which there was no known (or really even possible) contact with domestic livestock. One was in Zion NP and the other was Antelope Island. The Antelope Island disease outbreak completely wiped out an entire herd that had been living on the island for decades without any sign of disease. The Zion outbreak was much milder and the herd recovered. However, the common denominator was that both of these herds with no outside contact had recently been used to populate other herds. They were large, robust herds with no traceable diseases so they seemed ideal to be used for transplants. Yet only a short time after healthy ewes were removed, both herds came down with pneumonia.
This is consistent with what I know as a livestock breeder myself. Stressed animals become sick, and the family Caprinae is particularly susceptible to respiratory infection. What I believe caused the severe stress was not so much the chasing, darting, netting, and capturing (although that is extremely stressful and is usually done at a time when ewes are pregnant, which is certain to cause problems with lamb recruitment down the line), but I believe removing females from a herd can severely affect an entire herd's social structure. Bighorn herds are organized in matriarchies, and if you remove too many of the key females, it could throw the entire herd into turmoil resulting in stress-induced pneumonia. If the disease takes out even more key females, you've got a recipe for disaster. Even if many adults recover, lamb recruitment will stay low for years because of a disorganized herd social structure. I could go on and on about this particular topic, but it's something that bighorn sheep managers haven't been talking about. Honestly, I don't think they want to talk about it because it might force them to change how they conduct relocation efforts. It's much easier to blame a single cause and castigate livestock producers than to look at the issue holistically.
I apologize for this very long-winded post, but I want to emphasize that while domestic sheep pathogens are certainly a topic of great concern for bighorns and separation/mitigation efforts need to be in place, it is only one piece of a much larger puzzle and I am convinced that even if every single domestic sheep west of the Mississippi were removed, we would still see devastating pneumonia outbreaks due to the government's constant meddling with bighorn herds.