Wildlife experts in California and Nevada are sounding the alarm about a deadly disease that is claiming the lives of a growing number of desert bighorn sheep in the Mojave National Preserve about 100 miles southwest of Las Vegas. Officials for the National Park Service and California Department of Fish and Game say they may have to resort to killing some bighorns to prevent the outbreak from spreading through the largest herd in the 1.6 million-acre preserve.
Park Service spokeswoman Linda Slater said at least 20 dead sheep have been found the past month on Old Dad Mountain, about 15 miles southeast of Baker, Calif. Tests confirmed that at least some of them died from a strain of pneumonia generally transmitted by domestic sheep and goats that typically is fatal to bighorns.
“It’s really kind of a grim situation to be perfectly honest with you,” Slater told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Game wardens now are considering whether to hunt down sheep showing signs of sickness. But even that might not be enough to halt the spread.
“To really get rid of the disease, you have to kill every animal, but that’s not practical or likely to happen,” Slater said. “There are no good management options.”
Wildlife officials in Nevada are watching the situation anxiously, hoping the sick animals can be contained somehow before they come into contact with sheep in the Silver State.
The diseased herd is “only a 45-mile trip as the crow flies” from mountains that harbor desert bighorn at the southern edge of Clark County, said Doug Nielsen, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
“We do have some right down there close to the state line. So it’s a concern, and it’s something that needs to be monitored,” he said.
Slater said the afflicted animals are part of what she called “the biggest and healthiest herd” in Southern California. Transplants from the group have been used in the past to bolster struggling herds elsewhere in California, she said.
Bighorn have no natural resistance to pneumonia and tend to die at a high rate. Those that survive become carriers, infecting newborn lambs in a cycle that can ravage the herd for up to a decade. Read more….