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Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission Weighs in on U.S. Sheep Station Grazing
Montana Fish and Wildlife Commission Weighs in on U.S. Sheep Station Grazing
Congressional Leaders Urged to Protect Recreational Interests in Montana.
Contact: Bryan Bird (505) 699-4719 bbird@wildearthguardians.org
Additional contact:
JohnMeyer, WildEarth Guardians (406) 546-0149
Glenn Hockett. President, Gallatin Wildlife Association (406) 586-1729
Helena, Mont.—Apowerful voice is calling on Montana’s congressional delegation to end governmentsheep grazing on 16,000 acres of public lands along the Montana/Idaho border. WildEarthGuardians and its conservation partners want the sheep grazing ended as well andthe U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, ID closed to protect wildlife inthe Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. The letter from the Montana Fish andWildlife Commission to Senators Daines and Tester as well as Congressman Zinke addsto the chorus of voices.
“Its far time to end thishandout to the sheep industry,” said Bryan Bird, Wild Places ProgramDirector for WildEarth Guardians. “These public lands belong to allAmericans and they deserve to see them managed for wildlife and other publicbenefits.”
Also, on Tuesday, conservationgroups released a report showing that 85 percent ofMontana’s wild sheep herds are at risk of disease due to domestic sheep. TheNational Wildlife Federation, Montana Wildlife Federation, Wild SheepFoundation and Montana Wild Sheep Foundation sponsored the report.
In 2014, four groups sued theU.S. Department of Agriculture over the U.S. Sheep Experiment Station includingGallatin Wildlife Association, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians,and Cottonwood Environmental Law Center.
“The Sheep Station is a blackhole for grizzly bears.” Said John Meyer of WildEarth Guardians. “We are asking the federal government to holdoff on grazing domestic sheep in important wildlife habitat until it has fullyanalyzed the environmental impacts of its operations.”
Biologists have identified theCentennial Mountains as an important travel corridor for grizzly bears becauseit connects Yellowstone National Park with large unoccupied wilderness areas inIdaho. The U.S. Sheep Experiment Station has been using this land since 1915 tograze thousands of domestic sheep, and there have been several grizzly bearmortalities in the area in the recent past.
The Fish and Wildlife Service,Forest Service, Park Service, BLM, MT FWP and Idaho Fish and Game sent a jointletter to the Sheep Station in 2012 asking them to find an alternative area tograze sheep.
“The ARS has attempted tolock up these public lands in the Centennial Mountains and prevent publicaccess for hunting and hiking,” said Glenn Hockett, President, GallatinWildlife Association, “instead opting to pasture government domestic sheep tothe detriment of native wildlife, in particular bighorn sheep.”
In the fall of 2012, thecollar from a grizzly bear was found in a stream under a rock on Sheep Stationproperty. An empty rifle cartridge was recovered from the sheep herder’s camp and hunters were ruled out as suspects. Theconservation groups subsequently challenged the Biological Opinion for theSheep Station, which concluded that the federal facility was not jeopardizinggrizzly bears. The government settled the case and agreed to issue a newbiological opinion by June 2014.