OUTDOORS
Blue Mountain Eagle
A8
Wednesday, September 8, 2021
Bacteria ravages bighorn lambs
Both Baker County
herds have seen
significant declines
By Jayson Jacoby
EO Media Group
The Alaskan camp knife, top, shown with an Arkansas toothpick
for comparison.
SHOOTING THE BREEZE
The cutting edge
S
ometimes size matters. It
“They call it an Alaskan Camp
would be tough indeed to
knife,” said Gene, grinning
forget that iconic scene in from ear to ear. It made an
Crocodile Dundee where the
Arkansas toothpick look like
title character played by Paul
child’s play. Pops took it home
Hogan warded off a gang of
and made a pattern from card-
board, then set to work produc-
teenage ne’er-do-wells with a
ing these huge knives. Upon
demonstration of both the size
completion of the first, others
and sharpness of his Bowie
were requested, and he
hunting knife. Come-
dic value aside, a big
ended up making 10
knife can be more than
of them total, each one
a conversational piece.
slightly more unique
When I was but a
than its predecessors.
rookie and had only a
Being as it was so
couple of deer hunts
large, one couldn’t
under my belt, my
carry it hanging off
Dale Valade
father was starting to
of their belt, so Dad
get more serious in his hobby
fashioned sheaths with an over
of knife making. These knives
the shoulder sling for ease of
varied in size and design as he
carry. Each one he stamped
applied his creative talents. One with his initials and number in
he made for me was fashioned
the series. What would some-
thing like that be good for,
from the steel of a mill planer
other than as a conversation
blade complete with brass fix-
tures and a bone handle. Oth-
piece? A better question might
ers he made from various other be: What couldn’t you do with
grades of steel, and they usually such a knife? You could chop
had an antler handle. If he had
kindling, split brisket bones
time and materials, Pops would on your big game animals or
fashion a leather sheath from
chop your way through brush.
leather and rawhide.
Dispatching a rattlesnake,
One of the very coolest style no problem. Why, you could
of knives he ever made came
even clean your fingernails or
to us courtesy of a friend from
pick your teeth. The list is lit-
Alaska. We will call him Gene. erally endless. When select-
ing a knife for your day-to-day
When Gene resided in the
state once known as “Seward’s needs, be sure to pick the right
one. No, my one-of-a-kind
Folly” he made his living as
Alaskan camp knife is not for
a hunting guide. Believe me,
sale. If you want one, you’ll
size didn’t matter in his case.
have to get your own!
Although he stood only a few
What is your daily duty
inches over 5 feet tall, he had
knife? Write to us at shoo-
held his own and had some
tingthebreezebme@gmail.
great stories to tell.
com!
One day, upon learning
that my father made knives
Dale Valade is a local
as a hobby, Gene handed him
country gent with a love for
the blank of an obtusely large,
the outdoors, handloading,
almost comically so, knife.
hunting and shooting.
A bacterial infection con-
tinues to wreak havoc on
lambs in Baker County’s two
bighorn sheep herds.
A state wildlife biologist
said officials will continue to
strive, through annual test-
ing, to identify adult sheep
that constantly shed the bac-
teria, and then euthanize
those animals to try to protect
the herds.
“They’re not faring well
at all,” said Brian Ratliff, dis-
trict wildlife biologist at the
Oregon Department of Fish
and Wildlife’s Baker City
office. “But I think there’s
a very good possibility that
with enough effort, and some
luck, we will get through
this.”
The effort could take four
to five years, Ratliff said on
Monday morning, Aug. 30.
Biologists first became
aware of the problem in Feb-
ruary 2020, when dead big-
horns were found near the
Snake River Road at the
county’s eastern edge. Those
sheep are part of the Look-
out Mountain herd, Oregon’s
biggest herd of the Rocky
Mountain subspecies with
about 400 sheep prior to the
bacterial outbreak.
Later in 2020 biologists
also confirmed that the same
strain of Mycoplasma ovi-
pneumoniae bacteria had
infected bighorns in the
county’s other herd, in the
Burnt River Canyon between
Bridgeport and Durkee.
The Burnt River Canyon
bighorns, which previously
numbered about 85 animals,
are of the California subspe-
cies, which are somewhat
smaller than Rocky Moun-
tain bighorns.
Biologists believe that all
of the 65 to 70 lambs born
in the Lookout Mountain
herd in the spring of 2020
died from pneumonia, which
results from the bacterial
infection.
Ratliff estimated that at
least 75 adult bighorns from
the Lookout Mountain herd
also died in 2020.
EO Media Group/Lisa Britton
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 out-
break of pneumonia caused by a bacterial strain. The illness continues to kill most lambs in the herd,
and is also affecting the county’s other group of bighorns, in the Burnt River Canyon.
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 pop-
ulation requires a minimum
of 20 lambs per 100 ewes,
Ratliff said. The average
ratio for the Lookout Moun-
tain herd is 38 lambs per 100
ewes, and the number ranged
from a high of 67 per 100 to
a low of 24.
Ratliff said biologists
were initially optimistic at
the start of this summer that
the worst of the outbreak had
passed. As of mid June, biol-
ogists hadn’t found any dead
lambs from the 2021 crop,
nor any that were coughing
or otherwise appeared to be
sick.
“We started out really,
really good,” Ratliff said.
But the situation quickly
turned bad.
Once ewes and lambs
started to congregate in large
groups, as they typically do
during summer, due in part to
the scarcity of water sources,
people started reporting dead
lambs in the Lookout Moun-
tain unit, Ratliff said.
(Based on previous test-
ing of lambs, biologists know
they are not infected, by their
mother, prior to birth, he
said.)
As of Monday, Ratliff
said, ODFW knows of just
five lambs from the Look-
out Mountain unit that have
survived.
He said biologists hav-
en’t found any lambs in the
Burnt River Canyon herd,
although he said those sheep
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Ratliff said biologists
don’t know how the Lookout
Mountain herd was initially
infected with the bacteria.
Mycoplasma
ovipneu-
moniae bacteria are not
known to be carried by cat-
tle, but domestic sheep can
be infected.
Domestic sheep graze on
a public land allotment, over-
seen by the Bureau of Land
Management, in the Look-
out 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
domestic flocks near Rich-
land, at the north end of the
Lookout Mountain unit, were
tested in 2020 and none was
carrying the Mycoplasma
ovipneumoniae bacteria, Rat-
liff 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.
Blue Mountain Eagle
JDCCPARKSANDREC.ORG/FALL/
S259933-1
Source of bacteria
remains mystery
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ODFW’s focus is on find-
ing which bighorns, from
both herds, are chronically
shedding the bacteria, regard-
less of whether those animals
are actually ill.
Ratliff said even a few of
these chronic shedders can
keep the bacteria circulating
throughout a herd and con-
tinue to decimate each year’s
lamb crop.
He’s especially concerned
about ewes that are chronic
shedders, since the female
sheep spend much more time
in close contact with other
ewes and with lambs.
Rams, by contrast, gener-
ally don’t mingle with ewes
and lambs until Novem-
ber, so a ram that’s a chronic
shedder isn’t as likely to
spread the bacteria as widely.
Last fall, ODFW, with
financial aid from the Con-
federated Tribes of the
Umatilla Indian Reserva-
tion, as well as the Oregon
and national chapters of the
Foundation for North Amer-
ican Wild Sheep, captured 25
bighorns from the Lookout
Mountain herd. Although all
25 of those sheep had anti-
bodies in their blood show-
ing they had been infected
with the bacteria, just four of
the 25 were shedding bacte-
ria at that time, Ratliff said.
Biologists fitted all those
sheep with tracking collars
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Trying to identify
‘chronic shedders’
so they can be captured again
this year and retested, Ratliff
said.
This tracking and testing
campaign will be expanded
dramatically this year, with
a goal of capturing 140 more
bighorns, including some
from the Burnt River Can-
yon herd.
The strategy is a “two
strikes and you’re out” con-
cept, Ratliff said.
Bighorns that are identi-
fied as chronic shedders for
two consecutive years will be
euthanized, he said.
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are harder to track due to the
terrain.
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.
S260186-1
Contributed photo