The U.S. Bureau of Land Management isn't sheepish about supporting Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, where possible in his efforts to protect bighorn sheep in Utah.
James Parker, state director of the BLM, wrote Owens this week that his agency is already taking many of the steps Owens recently requested to keep domestic flocks away from bighorns. Diseases carried by domestic sheep can decimate the wild animals.Owens' request brought attacks from Utah sheep ranchers who feared he was attempting to lock up the range from their flocks. And Utah's two Republican congressmen - Reps. Jim Hansen and Howard Nielson - vowed to lock horns with Owens over the bighorn issue.
Among the steps Parker wrote that his agency is already taking include denying a recent request from a rancher near a bighorn herd to convert his cattle grazing rights to sheep grazing.
However, the agency noted the rancher still has grazing rights on adjacent state-controlled land, and it cannot stop him from grazing sheep there.
Parker added that his agency has adopted a policy to not convert cattle permits to sheep permits within two miles of existing bighorn range. And it is supporting efforts by conservation and other groups to buy out sheep grazing rights from ranchers in bighorn areas, and retire the rights permanently.
He said his agency will be on the watch for opportunities to retire sheep permits in areas where conservationists want to reintroduce bighorns, including the Stansbury and Newfoundland mountains.
Parker also defended his agency against an attack by Owens, who claimed it allowed a sheepherder to reactivate a sheep permit at Hatch Point near Canyonlands National Park, which led to the decimation of a bighorn herd there.
Parker said when the permit was reactivated, the bighorn herd had not expanded into the Hatch Point area. Also, he said BLM studies showed the herd had many diseases before it could have made contact with domestic sheep, and those may have been responsible for killing off the herd.