Bighorn Sheep

Mountain goat and bighorn sheep are iconic symbols of many national lands in the West and are economically important as big game species on some public lands and as tourist attractions in and around national parks. Both species have limited distributions that can be difficult to observe and face multiple stressors including disease, increasing recreation in remote areas, and shifting weather...

Bighorn sheep in the American West are a valued big game species and enjoyed by tourists visiting national parks. The populations in Glacier National Park make up one of the largest metapopulations in the continental U.S., and USGS NOROCK scientists have been studying them to inform the management of this charismatic and economically valuable species.

Researchers at the USGS are working on developing new quantitative methods to study disease dynamics in wildlife systems as well as systems at the wildlife-domestic-human interface. Much of our work focuses on how host population structure affects disease invasion, persistence and control in wildlife disease systems. We tackle these issues with a combination of simulation and statistical modeling...

Bighorn sheep populations are often impacted by outbreaks of pneumonia that are suspected to come from domestic sheep and goats.

Glacier National Park (GNP) is considered a stronghold for a large diversity of plant and animal species and harbors some of the last remaining populations of threatened and endangered species such as grizzly bear and bull trout, as well as non threatened, yet ecologically important species such as bighorn sheep and black bear. The mountain ecosystems of GNP that support these species are dynamic...