CST - A landmark agreement between ranchers on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest and conservationists aims at easing conflicts between grizzly bears and domestic sheep, and preventing the mingling of domestic sheep and wild bighorn sheep, in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Two years in the works, the habitat protection agreement would close a total of 40,076 contiguous acres of public sheep grazing land, including:

  -- 16, 370 acres on the Badger/Jackpine allotment northeast of Driggs, Idaho, benefiting grizzly bear habitat;

  -- 16,041 acres on the Green Mountain allotment, benefiting grizzly bear and bighorn sheep habitat; and

  -- 7,665 acres on the Mill Creek/Tablerock allotment, benefiting bighorn sheep habitat. All three allotments are adjacent to the Grand Teton National Park.

Several conservation groups, along with the Forest Service and Wyoming Department of Game and Fish, negotiated the deal with willing allotment permittees.

The Dick Egbert Sheep Company waived rights to its Badger/Jackpine and Mill Creek/Tablerock allotments, and then acquired the High Point and Big Bend allotments on the Ashton/Island Park Ranger District.

The Ball Brothers Sheep Company waived rights to the Green Mountain allotment and acquired an allotment on the Soda Springs Ranger District, on the Caribou portion of the forest. Both sheep operations had straight-across swaps of animal unit month (AUM) permits.

An AUM is the amount of land it takes to support a cow and her calf for a month.

Negotiations involved the permittees and representatives of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest as well as Defenders of Wildlife, the Wyoming, Eastern and Minnesota/Wisconsin chapters of Foundation for North American Wild Sheep (FNAWS) and Wyoming Wildlife Society Memorial Bear Fund.

Bear woes end

The agreement is part of an effort to protect the endangered grizzly bear by reducing the chances that bears will kill livestock and have to be destroyed.

The Egbert Sheep Company had experienced extensive domestic sheep depredation on the Badger/Jackpine allotment for many years -- 34 killed sheep from 1996-98 resulting in $4,080 in loss payments by the Game and Fish Department.

Five bears, including two breeding females, were relocated from the allotment, said Minette Johnson, a Northern Rockies field representative for Defenders of Wildlife. The female bears returned and killed more sheep.

"We tried everything we could think of," said Johnson, referring to Defenders of Wildlife programs to reduce depredation problems -- financing livestock guard dogs, fencing, alarm systems and adverse conditioning. "Nothing worked," she said.

Defenders of Wildlife tapped a new program -- the Bailey Wildlife Foundation Proactive Carnivore Conservation Fund -- which offered additional tools, such as alternative grazing lands or even retirement of grazing allotments from willing permittees.

Johnson said the retirement of the Badger/Jackpine and the northern half of Green Mountain allotments will provide habitat where grizzly bears can roam freely without coming into conflict with domestic sheep.

"This action is part of a broad effort by Defenders to step forward and do what it takes in partnership with local communities and stakeholders to restore imperilled and absent carnivores to ecosystems where they belong," said Bob Ferris, vice president at Defenders of Wildlife.

Egbert Sheep Co. received $28,000 from Defenders of Wildlife and $2,000 from the Memorial Bear Fund to compensate the company.

Bighorns win

Bighorn sheep were the other big winners with the retirement of the domestic sheep allotment leases.

"This really is a win-win situation," said Kevin Hurley, a bighorn sheep biologist for the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish and liaison to the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep.

Hurley said the Ball Brothers will be able to trail their sheep to and from pastures, without the expensive trucking that characterized their operations before.

Hurley said FNAWS worked closely with the permittees, with Wyoming FNAWS Past President Jim Collins leading the negotiations. Collins operates the Sand Creek Ranch near Pathfinder Reservoir.

FNAWS is concerned with domestic sheep grazing in close proximity to bighorn sheep, fearing that bighorn could die after contact with domestic sheep and a bacterium called Pateurelia haemolytica.