Sheep Tested For Pneumonia

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has begun a research project on bighorn sheep in the Jackson Region beginning with the radio collaring of ten bighorn ewes in an effort to learn more about herd health and migration patterns.   Samples for laboratory analysis were also collected when the GPS collars were fitted onto animals wintering in five distinct areas near Jackson including the Gray Hills, Red Hills and Slide Lake areas of the Gros Ventre drainage, Miller Butte on the National Elk Refuge and Hoback Canyon south of Jackson. Marking the animals is intended to identify migration corridors between winter and summer ranges in order to provide information as to whether the different segments of the herd intermingle on lambing and summer ranges.  Game and Fish Biologist Doug Brimeyer explains that the Jackson herd experienced a significant die off due to pneumonia in 2002 and biologists became concerned when approximately 10 percent of the sheep in the lower portion of the Gros Ventre drainage began exhibiting signs of pneumonia again.  Fortunately, Brimeyer says, biologists have not seen any sheep exhibiting signs of pneumonia so far this winter and the sheep they have handled appear in good health.