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Washington is home to an estimated 1,500 wild bighorn sheep that range in 18 herds in central and eastern areas of the state. More than half the wild sheep—some 800 animals— live in the Yakima River Valley.
Like other wildlife, bighorn sheep are subject to periodic disease outbreaks. A respiratory disease that takes a toll on wild bighorns is pneumonia.
Wildlife health researchers across the west have found that pneumonia in bighorns is most often caused by the Pasteurella bacteria and/or the Mycoplasma bacteria.
Pasteurella is commonly carried by many wild and domestic mammals. While domestic sheep are unaffected by Pasteurella and Mycoplasma, wild bighorn sheep often develop acute pneumonia and die.
Unfortunately, there is no effective treatment or preventive vaccination for pneumoniain wild bighorn sheep.
Pneumonia is not transmitted from sheep to humans, nor to domestic livestock.
Pneumonia outbreaks have killed bighorn sheep in other western states and in some Washington herds. Most recently, infected bighorns were found in late 2009 and early 2010 in the Umtanum herd in the Yakima River Valley. |
