In 2007, the Wild Sheep Foundation pledged $375,000 to be distributed over the course of the next five years to assist in the ongoing wild sheep disease research being done at Washington State University.  

Mannheimia (Pasteurell) haemolytica is the predominant organism that is transmitted from domestic sheep to bighorn sheep when contact between these two species occur.  The experiments to be conducted under this project should provide irrefutable data that shows that these organisms are in fact transmitted from domestic to bighorn sheep. Researchers will isolate the bacteria from the nasal cavities and tonsils of domestic sheep, tag them with a green fluorescent protein, and put them back into the domestic sheep.  Then they will begin to co-mingle the domestic and wild sheep.  Initially the animals will be penned apart at a distance of ten feet for three months, then the animals will be allowed to have fence-line contact for another three months, then finally will allowed to co-mingle for three months.  During each of the phases, the animals will be closely monitored for clinical signs of pneumonia.