Sheep Must Hit The Trail

Domestic sheep have grazed in the Hells Canyon of Oregon and Idaho for a century. After this spring, wild bighorn sheep are taking precedence.

The U.S. Forest Service has ordered a ranching family to remove its 3,000 head of sheep from the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area by the end of October to protect wild Rocky Mountain bighorns.

A U.S. District Court magistrate in April upheld the agency’s decision to remove domestic sheep from some portions, but refused to order the sheep’s immediate removal as environmentalists and the Nez Perce tribe wanted. Some domestic sheep will be allowed to graze on other portions of the Snake River canyon where they generally don’t mingle with the wild sheep.

But the departure of sheep from Temperance Creek Ranch ends a century of grazing in the lush canyon bottom. The Forest Service has ordered the ranch closed by October.

“I feel like someone’s playing God, judging which species will stay and which will go,” rancher Oliver Wentz said.

Conservationists and the sheepranching industry have fought over the presence of domestic sheep in the canyon.

Scientific studies have documented how bacteria found in domestic sheep could spread to wild bighorns and trigger deadly epidemics. Stress can also cause the epidemics.

Researchers say such epidemics contributed to the bighorn’s disappearance from Hells Canyon in the 1940s. Game managers later reintroduced bighorns to the canyon.

“We’re not in the frontier era anymore,” said Ric Bailey, executive director of Hells Canyon Preservation Council. Grazing on public lands “should be considered a privilege, not a right.”