The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today reopened the public comment period on its draft recovery plan for the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep.
The Service released its draft recovery plan on July 30 and had planned to accept public comments until September 29. The Service will now accept comments until 5:00 p.m. on December 8, 2003.
Comments on the draft recovery plan should be sent to the Field Supervisor, Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, 2493 Portola Road, Suite B; Ventura, CA 93003.
Comments or materials concerning the proposal should be sent electronically to: fw1snbsrp@r1.fws.gov Copies of the draft recovery plan for the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep are available at the Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office or the Pacific Regions Endangered Species web site. It may also be obtained by writing to the Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the address listed above or by calling (805) 644-1766.
One of the proposed actions in the recovery plan for the bighorn sheep is protecting them from mountain lions until herd sizes increase sufficiently. The plan calls for removing individual lions that are a threat while ensuring the viability of the mountain lion population. This temporary measure may allow herds to forage at lower elevations in late winter, resulting in a boost in the sheep population.
Another proposal is to eliminate the threat of contact between bighorn sheep and domestic sheep and goats. Healthy domestic sheep and goats can carry bacterial strains that cause fatal pneumonia in bighorn sheep, and can quickly devastate a bighorn population.
Other proposals include developing wild and/or captive herds whose members can be used to supplement depleted herds and reestablish extirpated herds. This proposal would help maintain the genetic diversity of this subspecies.
The bighorn sheep, listed as an endangered species in 1999, is at risk of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range. In 1999, only 125 bighorn sheep remained in the Sierra Nevada, living in five separate areas on mountainous, federally-owned land primarily in California
