TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — 3A
LOCAL
BIGHORNS
CHLORINE
Continued from Page 1A
Continued from Page 1A
The most promising sign
right now is that biologists
haven’t seen any dead lambs
from this year’s births, nor any
that appear to be sick, said
Ratliff, the district wildlife
biologist at the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife’s
(ODFW) Baker City offi ce.
“That’s a good sign,” Ratliff
said on Thursday, June 17.
One potentially bad sign is
that biologists have also seen
ewes without lambs, Ratliff
said. It’s not clear whether
those ewes didn’t have a lamb
this year, or whether they had
lambs that died. Lambs can be
killed by predators or die as a
result of something other than
the bacterial infection, he said.
Lambs — which usually are
born from late May through
mid June — appear to be
healthy in both the Lookout
Mountain herd and in Baker
County’s other bighorn herd,
in the Burnt River Canyon
south of Interstate 84, which
was infected with the same
bacteria later in 2020.
Biologists have counted at
least 27 lambs in the Lookout
Mountain herd — the tally is
not complete, he said — and
about a dozen in the Burnt
River Canyon herd.
Ratliff said he believes
about 95% of this year’s lambs
in the Lookout Mountain herd
have been born.
The situation was dramati-
cally different a year ago.
Ratliff said biologists found
dead lambs in the Lookout
Mountain herd as early
as June 5, 2020. Based on
surveys later in the year, it ap-
peared that none of the lambs
born in 2020 in the Lookout
Mountain herd survived.
The herd, which numbered
about 400 sheep prior to the
bacterial infection, probably
produced 65 to 70 lambs in
2020, Ratliff said.
He estimates that at least
another 75 adult sheep from
the Lookout Mountain herd
died last year from pneumo-
nia.
“There was signifi cant adult
mortality,” Ratliff said.
An aerial survey of the herd
in late 2020 turned up about
250 sheep, compared with 403
in a 2018 aerial census.
To maintain the herd popu-
lation requires a minimum of
20 lambs per 100 ewes, Ratliff
said. The average ratio for the
Lookout Mountain herd is 38
lambs per 100 ewes, and the
number ranged from a high of
67 per 100 to a low of 24.
“While it is a concern, it isn’t a crisis concern for us,”
Owen said on Monday, June 21. “We do have supply on
hand. We don’t want this to turn into the great toilet
paper hoarding, we’re not going to hoard additional
chlorine. We’re being very conscious about how much
we are using and working with our supplier for mak-
ing sure our next delivery is on schedule.”
The city uses chlorine in two places.
First, chlorine is added to drinking water, before it
enters the distribution system, as a disinfectant. (The
city also uses UV light as a disinfectant because some
microbes, including giardia, are not inactivated by
chlorine.)
Second, before the city discharges wastewater
into the Powder River from storage lagoons about a
mile north of town, chlorine is added to remove E.
coli bacteria, Owen said. The city then adds sulfur
dioxide, which removes the chlorine, because the city
isn’t allowed, under its state permit, to release the
chlorinated wastewater into the river (the concentra-
tion of chlorine is much higher in wastewater than in
drinking water).
The city has about 50 days’ supply of chlorine at the
wastewater plant, Owen said. The city does have some
fl exibility there, because wastewater can be stored
longer, reducing the amount of chlorine needed.
The situation with chlorine for disinfecting drinking
water is potentially more problematic. Based on cur-
rent water use, the city has enough chlorine through at
least July 10, Owen said.
But with record-setting heat forecast, residents are
likely to use more water on their lawns and in their
gardens and to fi ll wading pools. And more water use
means more chlorine is needed, Owen said.
As a result, she said it’s possible that the city will
have to enact its water curtailment ordinance earlier
than would otherwise be necessary.
She already anticipated that water use would be
reduced soon at city parks, Quail Ridge Golf Course
and Mount Hope Cemetery due to the drought.
Under the fi rst stage of the ordinance — which the
city announced in late July of 2020 — the city asks
residents to voluntarily curb water use.
Under stage 2, residents can use city water (the ordi-
nance doesn’t apply to private wells) to irrigate lawns
and gardens only every other day.
The ordinance also has stages 3 and 4, under which
lawn watering with city water is banned outright, with
potential fi nes for violators.
(That ordinance, No. 53.25, is available through
the city’s website, www.bakercity.com. Click on the
“Municipal Code” link and type “water curtailment” in
the search bar.)
“We shall see how our water supply holds out and
that will likely kind of impact our water curtailment
ordinance based on drought conditions, not so much
chlorine conditions,” Owen said.
Rainfall since March 1 has been about 37% of aver-
age at the Baker City Airport.
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
A group of bighorn sheep, including a lamb, in the Lookout Mountain unit in eastern
Baker County on June 20, 2020. A state wildlife biologist said it’s likely that no lambs
born in 2020 survived an outbreak of pneumonia caused by a bacterial strain.
fi tted to sheep and to pay for
testing, from the Confederated
Tribes of the Umatilla Indian
Reservation, as well as the
Oregon and national chapters
of the Foundation for North
American Wild Sheep.
“None of this is cheap,” he
said. “There are a lot of people
really interested in preserving
sheep in the (Lookout Moun-
tain) herd.”
Umatilla tribal members
have the legal right to hunt
bighorns in the Lookout
Mountain unit because it is
part of their ancestral hunting
grounds.
But Ratliff said that before
he could even ask the Tribes in
2020 to temporarily postpone
hunting, they did so volun-
tarily.
Ratliff said other states,
including Idaho, that have
had pneumonia outbreaks
in bighorn sheep herds have
found that identifying chronic
shedders, and euthanizing
them, can be the key to eradi-
cating bacteria or viruses from
the herd.
These adult sheep might
not be ill, but because they
constantly shed the virus
or bacteria, they can infect
other sheep and prolong the
outbreak, he said.
To fi gure out which sheep
are chronic shedders, biologists
tranquilize sheep and test
their blood for the bacteria.
Two rounds of testing in
the Lookout Mountain herd
in 2020 give biologists another
reason to be optimistic that
the current outbreak is past its
peak and that the herd could
be saved, Ratliff said.
During the fi rst series of
tests, conducted from Febru-
ary through May, 88% of
sheep tested were infected
Bacterial strain’s fi rst
with the bacteria and capable
confi rmation in Oregon
of spreading the germ, he said.
The same strain of My-
The second round of tests,
coplasma ovipneumoniae
done in the fall of 2020,
bacteria was found in tissue
showed that 91% of the
samples from bighorns from
approximately 25 tested
both the Lookout Mountain
bighorns had antibodies in
and Burnt River Canyon
their blood showing they had
herds in 2020.
previously been infected with
That strain had not been
the bacteria.
detected in bighorn sheep in
But just 8% of those sheep
Oregon before, Ratliff said.
were currently infected, and
The outbreak prompted
thus shedding bacteria, Ratliff
state offi cials to cancel bighorn Trying to identify ‘chronic said.
sheep hunts in 2020 and 2021 shedders’
That, like the apparently
The emphasis for ODFW
in both units. In the past the
healthy 2021 lamb crops in
state had issued three tags for and its many partners now
both herds, is a positive sign,
Lookout Mountain and one for and in the future is to identify he said.
sheep in both herds that are
Burnt River Canyon.
All tested sheep were fi tted
“chronic shedders” of the bacte- with tracking collars, which
Ratliff and other biologists
ria, Ratliff said.
have been monitoring the
makes it much easier for biolo-
He said the state is receiv-
Lookout Mountain herd since
gists to fi nd those sheep again
ing help, including fi nancial
mid February 2020, when
and retest them.
aid to buy tracking collars
ODFW received a report of a
That testing is planned for
CHARGED
Continued from Page 1A
The warrant from Baker
County Circuit Court stems
from investigations by the
Baker City Police and Baker
County Sheriff’s Offi ce re-
lated to construction fraud
complaints, according to a
press release from Ray Du-
man, interim administrator
for the Baker City Police.
The two agencies investi-
gated two incidents with a
combined loss of $78,000, ac-
cording to the press release.
A third case, from Union
County, was also reported to
Baker City Police.
Three other cases reported
to Baker City Police were
dead bighorn ram from the
Lookout Mountain herd lying
on the Snake River Road near
Connor Creek, about 18 miles
north of Huntington.
During the spring of 2020,
biologists found several dead
adult bighorns.
Ratliff said bacteria can
spread rapidly among lambs
as the ewes and lambs tend to
form large groups, and even a
single sick animal can easily
infect the others in the group.
With biologists having seen
more than two dozen Lookout
Mountain lambs since late
May, with none appearing ill, it
seems likely that the bacteria
is not nearly as prevalent as it
was in 2020, Ratliff said.
(Bighorns that have pneu-
monia cough frequently, and
are relatively easy to diag-
nose.)
Although bighorn sheep are
stout animals renowned for
their ability to easily traverse
some of the state’s toughest
terrain, they are quite vulner-
able to a variety of bacteria
and viruses that cause fatal
pneumonia, Ratliff said.
Pneumonia outbreaks have
plagued many bighorn herds
in Oregon over the past few
decades.
“Bighorn sheep are suscep-
tible to a lot of things,” Ratliff
said. “They’re not the strongest
species out there.”
Oregon has two subspe-
cies of bighorns — Rocky
Mountain and California (also
known as desert) bighorns.
The Lookout Mountain herd
is Oregon’s biggest group of
Rocky Mountain bighorns.
The 85 or so sheep in the
Burnt River Canyon herd are
California bighorns.
Both subspecies are suscep-
tible to the same bacteria and
viruses, and they can transmit
infections between subspecies.
Sheep in the Burnt River
Canyon began dying around
October 2020, and Ratliff
believes sheep from that herd
crossed I-84 earlier in the year,
mingled with Lookout Moun-
tain bighorns and became
ill, then returned and began
spreading the bacteria among
Burnt River Canyon sheep.
this fall, Ratliff said.
Any sheep that was a
chronic shedder in 2020, and
is still shedding bacteria in
2021, will be euthanized, he
said.
Ratliff said some states
have euthanized bighorns af-
ter the fi rst test showing they
are shedding bacteria, but
ODFW offi cials decided not to
do so with the relatively few
sheep that were infected in
the fall of 2020, in effect giving
them a second chance to get
rid of the bacteria.
In the Burnt River Canyon
herd, which was infected
several months later, 61% of
sheep tested in March 2021
were carrying the bacteria,
Ratliff said.
Based on the signifi cant
drop in infection rate among
the Lookout Mountain herd in
late 2020 compared with early
in the year, Ratliff said he
hopes the Burnt River Canyon
herd will show a similar trend.
Although chronic shedders
pose the greatest risk, Ratliff
said some adult sheep can also
be “intermittent” shedders,
meaning they carry the bac-
teria but shed it only some of
the time and so could produce
a negative test but still be
capable, at times, of infecting
other sheep.
Source of bacteria remains
mystery
Ratliff said biologists don’t
know how the Lookout Moun-
tain herd was initially infected
with the bacteria.
Mycoplasma ovipneumoni-
ae bacteria are not known to
be carried by cattle, but do-
mestic sheep can be infected.
Domestic sheep graze on a
public land allotment, over-
seen by the Bureau of Land
Management, in the Lookout
Mountain unit, Ratliff said.
None of the domestic sheep
that graze on that allot-
ment has been tested for the
bacteria.
Sheep from two other do-
mestic fl ocks near Richland, at
the north end of the Lookout
Mountain unit, were tested in
2020 and none was carrying
the Mycoplasma ovipneu-
moniae bacteria, Ratliff said.
A llama owned by a resident
along the Snake River Road
was also tested, and was also
negative for the bacteria.
Ratliff said the strain of
bacteria in both Lookout
Mountain and Burnt River
Canyon herds has not been
detected in bighorns in Idaho,
which can potentially mingle
with Oregon bighorns.
settled by civil action between County District Attorney’s
volving Hackett to the Baker
the residents and Hackett, ac- Offi ce.”
City Police (541-523-3644) or
cording to the press release.
People are encouraged to
Baker County Sheriff’s Offi ce
According to the Oregon
report possible incidents in-
(541-523-6415).
Contractor Construction
Board, Hackett has never
been a licensed contractor in
ES
Oregon.
PRIC
The agency fi ned Hackett
HED
SLAS
fi ve times between 2009 and
2021 for working without a li-
cense, and he owes $25,491 in
penalties, including interest,
said Leslie Culpepper, com-
munications and education
manager for the Contractor
Per person Cruise
day!
Construction Board.
only rate from
Call to
21
20
$
,
31
ar
2699.00 $ 1994.00
According to the press
Book by M
inside stateroom
for Promotion
release, “BCPD anticipates
Find YOUR Why Small Group Travel
additional charges, as ad-
AKA: (Baker Valley Travel & Alegre Travel)
ditional investigations will
be presented to the Baker
541-523-9353 & 541-963-9000
N EWS OF R ECORD
DEATHS
John L. ‘Jack’ Jacob-
son: 81, a retired attorney,
died June 20, 2021, at his
home in Rock Creek near
Haines. Services are under
the direction of Coles Tribute
Center, 1950 Place St., Baker
City, OR 97814 To light a
candle in memory of Jack, go
to www.colestributecenter.
com.
FUNERAL PENDING
Beth Johnson: A celebra-
tion of her life will take place
Saturday, June 26 at 11 a.m.
at the Church of the Naza-
rene, 1250 Hughes Lane in
Baker City. Online condo-
lences can be made at www.
tamispinevalleyfuneralhome.
com.
Dan Harmon: Celebra-
tion of life potluck (his family
will provide the meat) will be
Saturday, June 26 at noon at
Dan’s Home, 17501 Deer Park
Loop. Online condolences
can be made at www.tamispi-
nevalleyfuneralhome.com.
James Oliver (J.O.) Max-
well: Graveside memorial
service with Air Force military
honors, Monday, July 5 at 10
a.m. at the Haines Cemetery.
In lieu of fl owers, please
consider donating to the
Haines Elementary School
or a charity of your choice
through Gray’s West & Co.
Pioneer Chapel, 1500 Dewey
Ave., Baker City, OR 97814.
Pam Maxwell is compiling a
memory book for the family.
If you have a fond memory or
Don’t text and
drive... you
won’t have to
come see us!
SAIL THE GREEK ISLES
copy of a photo, please send
them to Pam Maxwell, 15177
Muddy Creek Lane, Haines,
OR 97833.
Don Phillips: A celebra-
tion of his life will take place
Saturday, July 17 at 1 p.m.
in the Family Life Center at
the Nazarene Church, 1250
Hughes Lane in Baker City.
The family asks that if you
have any special memories
you’d like to share, please
mail them to Tami’s Pine Val-
ley Funeral Home & Crema-
tion Services, P.O. Box 543,
Halfway, OR 97834. Online
condolences can be made at
www.tamispinevalleyfuneral-
home.com.
POLICE LOG
Baker City Police
Arrests, citations
HARASSMENT, MINOR IN
POSSESSION OF ALCOHOL
BY CONSUMPTION: Justin
James Smith, 20, Baker City,
5:45 p.m. Sunday, June 20
in the 2500 block of Ninth
Street; cited and released.
SECOND-DEGREE CRIMI-
NAL TRESPASSING: Laura
Feign Osterkamp, 57, Baker
City, 12:26 a.m. Friday, June
18 in the 1200 block of Place
Street; cited and released.
Baker County Sheriff’s
Offi ce
Arrests, citations
THEFT (out-of-county war-
rant): Zachary Aron Carter, 23,
Baker City, 9:19 a.m. Sunday,
June 20 at the sheriff’s offi ce;
jailed.
• Lumber
• Plywood
• Building Materials
• Hardware
• Paint
• Plumbing
• Electrical
And much more!
3205 10th Street
Baker City
541-523-4422
2390 Broadway, Baker City
541-523-5223
Mon-Fri 7:30 am - 5:30 pm
Saturday 8 am - 5 pm
Closed Sun