Respiratory disease transmitted from domestic sheep remains the largest impediment to restoring and sustaining wild sheep across western North America. The mechanism of pathogen transmission from domestic to wild sheep may be relatively simple, however creating effective separation between domestic sheep on private land and free-ranging wild sheep, is not. This wildlife health issue has been historically contentious, with passionate wild sheep conservationists and landowners who are well within their right to farm sheep on their property. Since a large die-off of bighorn sheep in the South Okanagan in 2000 following known contact with domestic sheep, the BC Sheep Separation Program has been funded through Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation (HCTF) to develop a variety of mitigation efforts from farm fencing to provincial policy. Recently the program has improved farm outreach through on-farm pathogen testing that incorporates a peer-to-peer approach focused on high health stewardship, and the goal of “healthy wild sheep, and healthy sheep farming”. 

The Natural Resources & Environmental Studies Institute (NRESi) at UNBC hosts a weekly lecture series at the Prince George campus. Anyone from the university or wider community with interest in the topic area is welcome to attend. Presentations are also made available to remote participants through Zoom Webinar. Go to http://www.unbc.ca/nres-institute/colloquium-webcasts to view the presentation remotely.

Past NRESi colloquium presentations and special lectures can be viewed on our video archive, available here.