Spread of Bighorn Sheep Pneumonia Continues

Domestic sheep spread deadly disease to wild bighorn sheep

It’s been a bad year for bighorn sheep in Montana.

Spread of Bighorn Sheep Pneumonia Continues – New West

While we see an increasing amount of media attention that bighorns are dying of disease, unfortunately, with this article, there is a familiar omission of context regarding a likely source of disease for bighorns in general; namely, domestic sheep.

This is worth pointing out over and over again, as it has significant policy implications.

Earlier, Ken Cole put together a comprehensive illustration of a WAFWA report that summarizes bighorn outbreaks this past year.  It’s worth looking at.

Long Butte fire in southern Idaho burns 215,000 acres in one day

Fire moved up to 30 miles an hour at times

Southern Idaho experienced quite a wind storm Saturday night with lightning and little rain. Boise was hit hard with power outages caused by downed trees all over town due to 70 mile per hour gusts of wind. The Long Butte fire started that night and moved quickly to the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument where it burned 3/4 of the monument.

UPDATE: Fire’s progress into Gooding County halted; fire now covers 215,000 acres.