Feral Cattle and Wild Dog Pack

[Taffy]

This article mentions in passing that cattle can transmit disease to bighorn sheep.  After reading the article I don't think I'll be hiking in here any time soon.  It sounds like a land of predators and human chasing feral cattle!

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/...story.html

[IdahoNancy]

Good heavens. Really! Fix it already. Of course after you get a commission together to finish the fact finding, run it by the conservation group, the BLM, the NFS, the trail association, the regional director, and laywers of all parties involved including the tortoises, toads, and of course the bighorn sheep.

[Nanno]

I love how the area has seen almost twice as much traffic ever since it was designated a National Monument. All this hoopla over the Bears Ears, and one of the problems many locals have is the amount of publicity and traffic these designations bring to a sensitive area. Sometimes it's much better to leave it as an unremarkable piece of BLM/FS land and not draw attention to it.

I do wonder where they get their "facts" that these cattle could transmit diseases to Bighorn sheep. No source is cited. I don't like it when people cite "facts" without citing valid sources. It sounds like they need to remove the feral cattle and dogs, but they don't need to make up new reasons to do so. I doubt the cattle will infect the Bighorns. They're a lot more likely to compete for water and forage resources. On the other hand, the cattle may provide a good alternative source of food for the local predator population and help keep Bighorns from being eaten as often. It's one of those things that's probably been going on for decades but no one really thought of it as a problem until a bunch of city slickers began pouring into the area and taking selfies with the feral cattle. Sounds like it shouldn't be too difficult a problem to fix though. If they were to advertise that the cattle were free on a first-come, first-serve basis I'll bet some local ranchers would be happy to round them up. They're going to have more trouble with the feral dogs in a National Monument. I'll bet they can't advertise free target practice.