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(03-29-2014, 05:19 PM)Taffy Wrote: I've been doing some research on disease transmission between bighorn and goats. This is a good paper to read: http://www.bighornsheep.org/article_rmrs_gtr209.pdf
This quote from the paper states the sheep and goats would need to be less than 60' from the bighorns to transmit Mannheimia and Pasteurella! Have any of you ever been that close to a bighorn?
"All ungulates, except llamas, carry some strains of
Mannheimia haemolytica (Foreyt 1995). Bighorn sheep appear to be behaviorally attracted
to domestic sheep and goats, but not to cattle or llamas. Since
Mannheimia spp. and Pasteurella spp. bacteria transmission requires very close (less than
60 ft) contact or transfer of mucus through coughing or sneezing, it is more
likely to occur between bighorn sheep and domestic sheep or goats (Dixon
and others 2002) that are behaviorally attracted to one another."
A major concern in reading this paper is that they are lumping goats in with sheep when it seems the findings are all based on sheep transmitting the diseases to bighorns. They also mention a single feral goat and herds of goats which are grazed in bighorn areas.
Does anyone know of any park officials, dept. of wildlife officials or biologists who are goat packers who may be able to help in our fight to keep areas open to packgoats?
Keep in mind that this report is biased. This paper by Woolever and Schommer has some truth in it, mixed with lies. Trust the peer reviewed scientific papers, not the biased reports by biologists that work for the Forest Service and the Game & Fish.
The peer reviewed scientific papers written by the scientists show that domestic sheep were penned 10 meters away from big horn sheep for like 4 weeks and there were no die-offs whatsoever. Even when there was fence line contact for two months, none of the bighorn sheep died. When the bighorns were commingled with the domestic sheep, all of the bighorn sheep died. So the conclusion that was made is that the pathogens were not successfully transmitted through the air at 10 meters distance.
(SOURCE: Transmission of Mannheimia Haemolytica from Domestic Sheep:Unequivocal demonstration with green flourescent protein tagged organisms. Journal of Wildlife Diseases, 2010).
In the research done by NAPgA's attorney, myself and Larry Robinson, there is no peer reviewed scientific paper in existence that shows domestic goats are the culprit in bighorn sheep deaths.
How convenient that the biologists magically include GOATS into the mix when the studies were conducted using only Domestic Sheep. In your research, watch for these subtleties.
"They also mention a single feral goat and herds of goats which are grazed in bighorn areas."
This perhaps is alluding to the die-offs in Hells Canyon. Nice try... It was proven in the Rudolph papers that the organisms that killed the Bighorn Sheep were DIFFERENT than what the goats possessed. (different strain).