Y'all know I'm home sick and taking some powerful meds. I ask your forgiveness in advance. Don't think I'm filtering right and don't really care.
I keep thinking about the history and politics of Brucellosis.
Cattlemen bring the disease to Montana over a century ago and it is transmitted to wild elk and bison.
Draconian regulation is placed on the ranching industry to eradicate Brucellosis.
Domestics are then declared Brucellosis free.
Wildlife are not.
Now the AG lobby trolls that wildlife is dangerous to the industry.
Every bison that leaves YNP is at risk of being shot first and tested later.
(There are some interesting co-operatives going on right now which build communal emergency funds for ranchers who have to kill or quarantine their beef herds. It can take years of a ranch's annual budget with no way to sell beef until they are certified disease free again. )
Let's apply this to Wild Sheep: (It's not a perfect analogy, but let's try it out. )
Sheepmen bring MOVI to the wild sheep long ago. Domestics can tolerate it, wild sheep cannot.
Let's say the FDA or USDA implements a 100% MOVI free rule for domestic sheep and goats.
Wool Growers' herds would be quarantined until they are certified clean. No product could be removed from the ranch or sold.
First off the American Farm Bureau would decisively end the career of any politico who supported such legislation.
But say it did pass as legislation or became policy.
The next logical step in this progression would be to declare wild sheep a risk to domestic herds and call for their removal if they left their defined ranges. There will not likely be any more range expansion for wild herds lest they "risk" domestics.
This is not all that different than what is happening now, where a wild sheep seen cavorting with domestics is culled.
The Farm Bureau is the 800 pound gorilla now, and they would still be after such a scenario. Probably stronger.
What's the solution?
Not punitive regulation or policy. Wild Sheep advocates will never bully the AFB into a corner. Even that 50 sheep "hobby grower" is a PR disaster talking to a RFD-TV reporter about how the green decoys and gubmint took away his little herd. "And they weren't even sick..."
This will require nuance and negotiating. Finding groups of wool growers willing to do the right thing for wild herds. Finding ways to reward them for doing what is right.
Even that seems hopeless to me at the moment.
---------
The biggest irony and indicator of the hopelessness of this fight is that the term "Domestic" to applies to farm animals. Invasives in every way. Domesticated, sure, but not NATIVE. In 100 years, when the wild sheep are gone, someone in the Nevada Legislature will get a letter from a 4th grade class suggesting that the "Majestic" feral sheep be named the state mammal of Nevada. They will write a bill and it will get to the Governor's desk.
Lobby groups will say that feral sheep are the descendants of the great herds of wild sheep that once roamed the land. Only a meanie that would buzzkill a fourth grader could deny this! They are NOT Feral, NOT Invasive! They are the children of those noble creatures which were killed off by evil white men with guns for the sake of "Trophies"
And if you think feral horses scorch the earth, you should follow a flock of meadow maggots through the high country.
