Bighorn sheep die-off closes hunting area near Yellowstone
Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 9 years, 10 months AGO
<p>This undated file photo provided by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department shows a group of bighorn sheep in North Dakota. North Dakota will not have a bighorn sheep hunting season in 2015 for the first time in more than three decades because of sheep deaths due to bacterial pneumonia. </p>
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - A bighorn sheep die-off caused by disease has triggered the closure of hunting for the animals just outside Yellowstone National Park.
Montana Wildlife officials said Monday that at least 34 bighorn sheep have died in the pneumonia outbreak that began late last year near Gardiner, Mont. That's almost 40 percent of the herd that ranges in the Gardiner and Cinnabar areas north of Yellowstone.
Wildlife commissioners issued the closure during a Monday conference call and said it would reopen when the population recovers.
Sheep in the Gardiner area have experienced smaller pneumonia outbreaks in the past few years.
There are domestic sheep in the same area. State officials say bacteria can be transmitted from healthy domestic sheep to bighorn sheep, causing pneumonia in the wild animals.
