A former director of the Colorado Division of Wildlife is criticizing the agency’s current management practices for bighorn sheep.
The Durango Herald reports that John Mumma, who retired from the DOW in 2000, says it makes no sense to kill some wild sheep in order to save others. The practice in question involves euthanizing bighorns that come into contact with domestic sheep in order to prevent possible disease transmission from the livestock into the wild herds. The Herald reports that this year, the wildlife management office – now part of a larger state agency called Parks and Wildlife – killed six bighorns in the San Juan Mountains that had encountered domestic sheep. Mumma said his former agency is no longer “standing up for the rights of wildlife.” But a spokesman for Parks and Wildlife, Joe Lewandowski, told the Herald that biologists must look out for whole herds, not individual animals.
