Wildlife officials are asking hikers to refrain from bringing domestic sheep or goats into bighorn sheep habitat in the Catalina Mountains because the domestic animals can transmit diseases such as pneumonia to bighorns.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department recently posted signs warning of the disease risk at three trailheads in the habitat area north of Tucson after receiving two reports of a person walking a domestic goat on one of the trails.
βIt was on the Finger Rock Trail where the person was seen walking the goat,β said Mark Hart, spokesman for the department. βThe person has broken no law but might not know that he or she is putting the bighorns at risk. Even one goat poses a risk to the bighorn population.β
Thatβs why the department has put up signs at trailheads for the Finger Rock, Pima Canyon and Ventana Canyon trails in the bighorn sheep management area, Hart said.
Bighorns from elsewhere in Arizona have been brought to the area in recent years in an effort to rebuild a herd that disappeared from the Catalinas in the 1990s.
Hart said 44 GPS-collared sheep are known to be alive in the range, but the overall population estimate is 75 to 80 animals, based on field observations of uncollared bighorns.
DISEASE RISK
βThe primary concern is pneumonia,β Hart said. βWe know that domestic sheep and goats can transfer pneumonia to bighorn sheep.β
He said physical contact between the domestic and wild animals isnβt necessary for transmittal of disease.
βIt can be transmitted through a domestic animal urinating or defecating in an area later visited by a bighorn,β Hart said.
