Group: U Idaho knew bighorn disease link after '94

A University of Idaho research center has had evidence for 15 years that bighorn sheep can get deadly diseases directly from domestic sheep on the open range, despite the center coordinator's insistence to the contrary, an environmental group says.

Marie Bulgin, head of the university's Caine Veterinary Teaching and Research Center, said she didn't know about the studies, though they were conducted by her center's scientists. Bulgin is a ranching advocate who has long insisted there is no evidence that bighorn sheep can get sick from domestic sheep on rangeland.

This is a sore subject in Idaho, where Payette National Forest managers are considering reducing domestic sheep grazing allotments near Hell's Canyon to protect bighorns reintroduced there in 1971. Ranchers are fighting the proposed reductions in federal court.

In 1994, a bighorn ewe and ram from separate herds in Nevada and Oregon were seen mixing with domestic sheep in those states. Captured and brought to the Idaho Fish and Game Wildlife Health Laboratory in Caldwell, they soon died of pneumonia.

Scientists from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game and the Caine center, also in Caldwell, used DNA tests to determine the parasites that caused the disease in the bighorns were biochemically identical to bacteria found in the domestic sheep they had mixed with. Transmission "likely occurred between the species on the range," according to an abstract obtained by The Associated Press.

Jon Marvel, who heads up the Hailey-based Western Watersheds Project, maintains Bulgin should have known this - even as she was testifying under oath in federal court and before the Idaho Legislature that there was no documented evidence of disease transmission between bighorns and domestics on the range.

"At a minimum, the state of Idaho should not be employing someone with such a conflict of interest," Marvel said. "And they should admit that their own offices and the Caine veterinary center knew better for as long as 15 years."

Alton C. S. Ward, a researcher at the center who worked under Bulgin and who helped with the studies, declined to comment when contacted by the AP.

Contacted Thursday, Bulgin, a past president of the Idaho Wool Grower's Association who worked at the Idaho center in 1994 but took over as coordinator only in 2003, said she knew nothing about the research until earlier this year.

She said that in light of the studies, she's rethinking her stance.

"This kind of compromises me, because what I've been saying," Bulgin told the AP. "I didn't know about it. Some things slip by you. I don't think that was done until somebody had the time to actually go back and look at the records."

She said there may be other factors, including stress, that result in bighorn sheep die-offs, such as ones where 300 sheep died in 1995 and 1996 in Hell's Canyon. Idaho bighorn numbers have dwindled by half since 1990, to about 3,500 animals.

"I'm not against bighorn sheep," Bulgin said. "I'm just for agriculture."

Jim Jeffress, a Nevada Department of Wildlife biologist who helped transport one of the 1994 bighorns to Idaho for analysis, said he was perplexed that the 1994 deaths were not publicized, either by the university or the state of Idaho.

"It's been very disheartening for me that this was never brought forth to the scientific community," Jeffress said.

Other scientists said the assertion that diseases aren't transmitted between domestic sheep and bighorns on the open range has been largely discounted.

"It's an outdated notion," said Curt Mack, the Nez Perce Tribe's bighorn sheep recovery project leader.

The battle between wildlife advocates and sheep ranchers in Idaho has escalated, as the Payette National Forest considers closing about 61 percent of its grazing allotments.

"What we're trying to do is provide separation," said Pattie Soucek, the Payette forest's land management planner in McCall. "For us, it's all about providing habitat" for bighorns.

Hell's Canyon ranchers are furious, contending that federal wildlife managers are reneging on a 1997 deal to protect their businesses after bighorns were reintroduced.

Earlier this year, the Idaho Legislature required the Department of Fish and Game to develop a plan to keep bighorns away from domestic sheep.