Current work in wildlife, rivers, public lands, and climate

Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Bighorn Sheep in the Greenhorns One Step Closer to Protection

Judge Rules that the Beaverhead-Deerlodge Must Address Threats from Grazing
Contact: Greg Dyson, (503) 730-9242, gdyson@wildearthguardians.org

Additional Contact:

Stuart Wilcox, WildEarthGuardians, 720-331-0385, swilcox@wildearthguardians.org

BUTTE, Mont.—Bighorn sheep are one step closer to beingprotected in Montana’s Greenhorn Mountains thanks to a judge’s ruling yesterdaythat the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest failed to disclose and reviewinformation about bighorn sheep when it approved domestic sheep grazing in the neighboringGravelly Mountains.

U.S. District Court Judge, Brian Morris, ruled on claimsraised by Gallatin Wildlife Association, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarthGuardians, and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation. Judge Morris ruled that theBeaverhead-Deerlodge failed to disclose and analyze a Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MOU) with the State, the Bureau of Land Management, and sheeppermittees. He also ruled that the Forest must revisit the 16 to 37 year oldmanagement plans for the individual domestic sheep allotments in the Gravellys becausethey contain no analysis of threats to bighorn.

“Bighorn sheep belong in the Greenhorns,” said Greg Dyson ofWildEarth Guardians. “Before they were eliminated in the 1900’s, they had beenthere for millennia. As long as domestic sheep are allowed to graze and trailthrough this area, bighorn sheep will not persist there.”

Bighorn sheep historically occupied both the Greenhorns and Gravellys,but were wiped out primarily by overhunting and disease picked up from contactwith domestic sheep. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (MFWP) reintroduced thespecies in 2003-04 with 69 individuals, but the population has steadilydecreased due in large part to management killings to protect nearby grazingoperations and relocations. The population likely now numbers around 30, farshort of the original goal of 200 set at the time of reintroduction.

“The Forest Service has ignored the disease threat to theGreenhorn bighorn herd for too long,” said Stuart Wilcox of WildEarthGuardians. “The Court has given the Beaverhead-Deerlodge the opportunity to fixits mistake, and we hope it takes that opportunity seriously.”

Scientists now know that domestic sheep carry a pathogenthat causes highly virulent pneumonia in bighorn when they come into even casualcontact with domestics. When contact occurs, pneumonia sweeps through thebighorn herd, killing 75-100% of the herd very quickly. The remaining members,if any, suffer ongoing harm for years after this initial outbreak, includingsusceptibility to new outbreaks and reduced lamb recruitment. This greatlydiminishes the herd’s ability to recover and increases the likelihood of the herdeventually dying out. Many such disease outbreaks have occurred in Montana and elsewherethroughout the west.

Despitethis information, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge failed to adequately assess therisks that domestic sheep grazing poses to the Greenhorn herd.

The Beaverhead-Deerlodge completely neglected tomention, let alone analyze, the MOU anywhere in its Forest Plan analysis. TheMOU provides for issuance of kill permits to private sheep grazing permitteesto kill bighorns that come near their herds, a first for a reintroduced bighornpopulation in Montana. More importantly, the MOU includes a commitment by theForest Service not to alter the management of domestic sheep grazing for thebenefit of bighorn sheep. As a result, the Court required the Forest toreassess its Forest Plan to determine the impacts of the MOU and whether its existencechanges how the Forest manages bighorn sheep.

In addition, though all of the environmental analysesfor the individual grazing allotments were prepared at a time when bighorn werestill eliminated from the Greenhorns, the Forest failed to examine whether newinformation required it to revisit those analyses. The Court ordered the Forestto consider a suite of new information that did not exist at the time thedomestic sheep grazing was initially authorized: (1) the reintroduction of bighorn sheep; (2) the 2011 ForestService listing of bighorn sheep as a sensitive species; (3) the existence ofthe MOU; (4) the science regarding disease transmission between domestic sheepand bighorn sheep; and (5) that MFWP considers closed grazing allotments aspotential locations for bighorn reintroductions.

JudgeMorris ended his Order by stating: “The USFS must decide at the end ofthis process how to address the conflict between domestic sheep grazing and thereintroduction of bighorn sheep in the Gravelly Landscape.”

The plaintiffs were represented by Stuart Wilcox and SarahMcMillan of WildEarth Guardians and John Meyer of Cottonwood Environmental LawCenter.

Acopy of the court’s order is available here.