Idaho Story Updates
On Monday, June 8th we reported that Idaho Fish and Game wildlife managers were looking for a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep ram that they thought had contracted pneumonia. Fish and Game experts were worried that the situation meant a life and death outcome for other wild sheep in the Salmon River canyon and were racing against time. Wildlife managers were intent on eliminating the ram from the herd in order to prevent the spread of pneumonia to the approximately 100 other bighorns that have their habitat in the Salmon River canyon.
Last Friday, Bighorn R14, a 7-year-old radio-collared ram was reported to have been located and put down. Officials took blood samples from the dead bighorn to see whether it carries the bacteria Pasteurella, which is known to cause pneumonia in bighorn sheep.
In other news and following up on the June water report, Idaho Department of Water Resources administrator Hal Anderson told the Idaho Farm Bureau Water Committee that the winter of 2009 couldn't have gone better in terms of Idaho's water.??Anderson says Idaho is having one of its best water years of the decade with good reservoir storage, above-average snowpack and a cool, wet spring that's sent torrents of spring run-off down the Snake River. He told committee members that the run-off has allowed the Idaho Water Resource Board to use its water rights to sink more than 80,000 acre-feet of water into the ground to recharge the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer.
