WildEarth Guardians

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, WildEarth Guardians, 720-331-0385, swilcox@wildearthguardians.org

BUTTE, Mont.—Bighorn sheep are one step closer to being protected in Montana’s Greenhorn Mountains thanks to a judge’s ruling yesterday that the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest failed to disclose and review information about bighorn sheep when it approved domestic sheep grazing in the neighboring Gravelly Mountains.

U.S. District Court Judge, Brian Morris, ruled on claims raised by Gallatin Wildlife Association, Western Watersheds Project, WildEarth Guardians, and Yellowstone Buffalo Foundation. Judge Morris ruled that the Beaverhead-Deerlodge failed to disclose and analyze a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the State, the Bureau of Land Management, and sheep permittees. He also ruled that the Forest must revisit the 16 to 37 year old management plans for the individual domestic sheep allotments in the Gravellys because they contain no analysis of threats to bighorn.

“Bighorn sheep belong in the Greenhorns,” said Greg Dyson of WildEarth Guardians. “Before they were eliminated in the 1900’s, they had been there for millennia. As long as domestic sheep are allowed to graze and trail through 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 contact with domestic sheep. Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks (MFWP) reintroduced the species in 2003-04 with 69 individuals, but the population has steadily decreased due in large part to management killings to protect nearby grazing operations and relocations. The population likely now numbers around 30, far short of the original goal of 200 set at the time of reintroduction.

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

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

Despite this information, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge failed to adequately assess the risks that domestic sheep grazing poses to the Greenhorn herd.

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

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

Judge Morris ended his Order by stating: "The USFS must decide at the end of this process how to address the conflict between domestic sheep grazing and the reintroduction of bighorn sheep in the Gravelly Landscape."

The plaintiffs were represented by Stuart Wilcox and Sarah McMillan of WildEarth Guardians and John Meyer of Cottonwood Environmental Law Center.

A copy of the court’s order is available here.