Some bighorn sheep that graze at Hemenway Park in Boulder City are suffering with runny noses, sniffles and coughing.
To determine whether members of the herd are sick with a bacterial pneumonia that is fatal to bighorn, state and federal biologists recently captured and euthanized a sick ewe. Tissue samples will be analyzed by the an animal disease diagnostics lab at Washington State University. If the animal tests positive for the fatal strain of pneumonia, state and federal resource managers will have to decide whether a controlled kill of individual sheep will protect the overall health of the Boulder City herd, which wildlife biologists label as the River Mountains herd.
Doug Nielsen, Nevada Department of Wildlife