State wildlife officials have proposed a controversial plan to kill endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep that have had contact with domestic sheep infected with highly contagious diseases.

In a proposal published last month, the state Department of Fish and Game said "allowing potentially infected animals to travel back to native bighorn herds and spread disease could be far more disastrous to bighorn recovery than the loss of a single animal through lethal take."

But environmentalists oppose the plan, saying that domestic sheep instead should be removed from federal grazing lands in the rocky Eastern Sierra where bighorns live.

"The proposal to kill wild bighorns to 'protect' them from domestic sheep is unwise and unethical," the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Inyo wrote in a letter. "What is necessary is to get domestic sheep away from bighorns now."

After the bighorn population in the central and southern Sierra Nevada declined to a low of 100 about 10 years ago, the federal government in 2000 listed the elusive, agile creatures as an endangered species.

The population has climbed to an estimated 350 in recent years, but state wildlife officials say their rising numbers increase the potential for contact with domestic sheep that carry pneumonia and other diseases that can wipe out the wild herds.

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Source: Associated Press
June 8, 2005

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