Pack Goat Closure extending to Oregon

[Saph]

It is now happening in Oregon:
The three National Forests that comprise the Blue Mountain Region of Oregon released the Proposed Revised Land Management Plan and DEIS on March 14, 2014. These forests are: The Malheur, the Umatilla, and the Wallowa-Whitman, including Hells Canyon National Recreation Area.
The plan will be available for comment for 90 days, which means the comment period will end on June 16, 2014.
ALL of the action alternatives in the Proposed Plan contain the following standard:
"The use of recreational pack goats shall not be authorized or allowed within or adjacent to source habitat for bighorn sheep."

As you can see, it is of the utmost importance that we comment on this issue. The Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming has set a precedent, and this is now starting to have a "ripple effect." Unless we exercise our right to comment, object, and litigate, we will potentially lose more and more areas to recreate with our goats.

Please read the documents at the following link:
http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/wallowa-wh...prd3792957

Please comment via the following link by June 16 2014:
https://cara.ecosystem-management.org/Pu...ject=31195
Important:if you don't submit a comment, you have no legal grounds to submit an objection!

Please, if you can, attend one of these public meetings and comment:
https://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMEN...447206.pdf

Finally, please put yourself on the mailing list so that you can receive updates:
bluemtnplanrevision@fs.fed.us or call 541-523-1246 or 541-523-1302.

[Curtis King]

The plan will be available for comment for 90 days, which means the comment period will end on June 16, 2014.
ALL of the action alternatives in the Proposed Plan contain the following standard:
"The use of recreational pack goats shall not be authorized or allowed within or adjacent to source habitat for bighorn sheep."

WOW. This is getting very serious and way to close to home for my comfort zone. I just finished reading the above proposed forest plan and the counter proposal written by our NAPgA attorney. KNOW ITS REALLY HAPPENING IN EASTERN OREGON IN THE UMATILLA NATIONAL FOREST. This is an absolute nightmare. I'll be attending the public meeting in Kennewick WA, on April 4th.

I wish there was more that I could do. I think Im going to be physically sick over this. We need everyone to respond to this during the public comments time frame. Larry is right. If we dont win the argument with the Shoshone FS in Wyoming, goat packing in the Northwest is going to sink like a rock.

Crying shame of it all is that this whole thing could be such a simple fix. Thanks Saph for keeping us posted.

"Long Live The Pack Goat"
Curtis King[/font]

[nebs]

I will also be at the April 4th Kennewick meeting!

[Taffy]

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?

[Saph]

Taffy, I hope you plan on commenting, & citing that article...we as a community need to stress in our comments that the concern for bighorn sheep co-mingling with pack goats can be mitigated by doing numerous actions, including:

• Highlining
  
• Keeping goats on a lead at all times
  
• GPS tracking collars in case goats do get lost
  
• requiring a veterinary certificate of health
  
• requiring a registration/permit system, and limiting the number of goats per party
  

These are just a few of the mitigation measures that need to be included and ANALYZED in all the alternatives. In addition, we need to offer to monitor the interactions between pack goats and bighorn sheep, document if we sight any sheep & if so, how close the sheep come to our goats.

Whether we agree with the research or not, we need to show that we are trying to reduce the PROBABILITY of ANY potential transmission between pack goats & wild sheep. We need to show that pack goats are NOT the same as free-ranging sheep & goats & should be analyzed separately, with the assumption that mitigation measures are in place & will be followed & monitored. If we can show this, then we can also show that risk of transmission will be extremely low.

Finally, we need to COLLABORATE (huge government buzzword) with the Forest Service in coming up with effective mitigation measures. If they ignore our requests to collaborate, they are in violation of policy.

I hope that everyone reading this responds to this issue. This is going to be an expensive battle to fight in court & I am fearful of the outcome. Let's see what we can do to avoid that--Saph

[Nanno]

This is very good to know. Thanks for keeping us updated! Might I suggest you also post this to thegoatspot.net. There are a lot of folks over there, and the more we spread the word the better!

[vigilguy]

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.

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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.

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"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).

[nebs]

Excellent points! Thanks for sharing.

[Taffy]

You've obviously done more research than I have. I need to dig deeper. With the meeting looming in just a couple days here in Kennewick we're going to need all the info we can get.

[vigilguy]

http://andrewirvinelaw.com/news/

Here is the link to our attorney's site. I would encourage everyone to carefully read NAPgA's Objections. Andy really blasts the USFS with both barrels in his document. Very thorough, very comprehensive.

Thank you so much for your interest and your willingness to attend the meeting in order to support goatpacking.

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Andy carefully refers to the Rudolph papers which addresses the Hells Canyon die-off, among other things. He really calls them out on 9 different issues.