Free: Contests & Raffles.
The population of bighorn sheep in the Yakima Canyon (“Umtanum” and “Selah” hunt units) continues to decline from a series of lamb recruitment failures subsequent to the pneumonia die-off of 2009-10. The department plans to capture, test, and remove animals likely to be the source of the continued pathogen spread. Success in this effort is much more likely if the herd is first reduced (and that reduction may, in part, help remove the pathogen spreaders). Thus, a substantial, temporary increase in permits (primarily for ewes) is proposed to reduce the population to a size where spreaders can be found and selectively removed.Staff recommendation:Revise permit numbers in the Selah Butte, Umtanum, Cleman, Quilomene, and Vulcan Mountain bighorn sheep herds.Policy issue(s) and expected outcome:•Sustainable bighorn sheep populations•Recover bighorns in the Yakima Canyon where very few lambs have been recruited since 2012, by removing enough animals to allow an effective program of identifying and removing pathogen spreaders•Providing hunter opportunityFiscal impacts of agency implementation:No fiscal impacts beyond the status quo.Public involvement process used and what you learned:The department notified approximately 12,000 individuals and organizations informing them of the opportunity to provide comment on the proposed regulation amendments. Additionally, these individuals and organizations were informed of the opportunity to provide verbal testimony at the March 1-2, 2019 Commission meeting in Spokane.
I'm no sheep Bio but I did sleep at a Holiday inn express last night and it seems stupid to thin the heard like that so it's easier to identify the sick ones so they then can kill them.There has to be a better way to do that
Too many sheep. The areas they are in are small. The herds don't have that much room to expand.