BOISE, Idaho – A ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recognizing a connection between bighorn sheep die-offs and diseases transmitted by domestic sheep could have far-reaching ramifications on federal grazing allotments in the West.
The ruling earlier this month by the three-judge panel against domestic sheep producers upheld a lower court ruling in Idaho supporting a U.S. Forest Service decision to close sheep grazing allotments to protect bighorns.
“A lot of people were looking at this waiting to see what they did,” said Laurie Rule of Advocates for the West, noting it’s the first time a U.S. circuit court has ruled on disease transmission between the species.
The ruling gives the Forest Service legal backing to look at other areas in the West where domestic sheep grazing should be limited to protect bighorns, she said, or for environmental groups “to try to force the Forest Service to do it if they’re not going to do it on their own.”
The Idaho Wool Growers Association and others sued in 2012, contending that the U.S. Forest Service illegally shut down 70 percent of sheep grazing in the Payette National Forest in west-central Idaho based on unproven disease transmission between domestic and bighorn sheep.
But a U.S. district court – and now a federal appeals court– disagreed.
“There’s that possibility that it could be used on other forests,” said Stan Boyd, executive director of the Idaho Wool Growers Association. He said the association was considering its next move involving possible legal action.
Kristine Lee, director of Natural Resources for the U.S. Forest Service’s Intermountain Region, said the agency already had a strategy before the circuit court ruling.
“For us, what it does, it supports our strategy to look at and analyze the risk of contact between bighorn and domestic sheep through our regulations,” she said. “Bottom line, the court ruling does not alter what we’re doing.”
North America had about 2 million bighorn sheep before numbers declined starting in the late 1800s to about 10 percent of that, the circuit court decision said, with over-hunting, habitat loss, food competition and disease transmission from domestic sheep generally cited as reasons.
