MISSOULA, Mont.—In letters to legislators and newspapers across the West, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is calling out groups like Defenders of Wildlife, Western Wildlife Conservancy and others for their disingenuous use of data on wolves and elk.


The RMEF action was prompted by each group’s recent op-ed articles in the media, as well as testimony before Utah lawmakers by Western Wildlife Conservancy Executive Director Kirk Robinson. All cited RMEF statistics to argue that restored wolf populations have somehow translated to growing elk herds in the northern Rockies.

Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) biologists continue to find bighorn sheep that have died due to complications brought on by pneumonia in the East Humboldt Range and in the Ruby Mountains.   
“We have found 61 dead bighorn sheep in the East Humboldt’s and 18 in the Ruby Mountains for a total of 79 sheep over the last three months,” said Caleb McAdoo, NDOW big game biologist.  “In other words, we have observed mortalities of 31% of the herd in the East Humboldt’s and 11% of the herd in the Ruby Mountains.”

McAdoo cautions the public that the full extent of the effects of the disease event won’t be known until later in the spring when aerial surveys of sheep populations are performed.  Biologists anticipate that the magnitude of the die-off may be much greater than presently known.

Nature will have its way with the remaining Rock Creek bighorn sheep battling a pneumonia outbreak.

"We didn’t see any clear way to distinguish which ones to save and which ones to remove," said Mike Thompson, wildlife manager for the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "It appears to be spread through whole herd we were able to sample. That solidified our decision to let it run its course."

Biologists flew a helicopter survey of the drainage last week. In the open country of the upper Rock Creek habitat, about 45 percent of the herd were coughing and showing other symptoms of the usually fatal disease. There have been about 340 bighorns in that area.