A die off of the Whiskey Mountain bighorn sheep herd in northwest Wyoming resulted in the death of about one third of its entire population. This was followed by a seven-year period of dangerously low lamb survival. In 1998 the Wyoming Game and Fish Department hired John Mionczynski to determine what was responsible for this reproductive decline. Conducting long-term field studies with the herd, Mionczynski observed that the ewes were returning to lower altitude mineral licks on a regular basis, leaving the lambs exposed to higher rates of predation. The ewes behavior combined with the apparent development of nutritional muscular dystrophy among the surviving lambs lead to the discovery of critically low selenium in the alpine forage plants these sheep relied on for food.
The decline of the bighorn sheep population in Wyoming’s Whiskey Mountain herd (the largest in the world) has perplexed wildlife biologists for 30 years. One hypothesis for this devastating decline focuses on the dwindling presence of the essential nutrient selenium in the forage plants bighorn sheep eat. There are many supporters and many opponents to this hypothesis.
@ Native Memory Project and nativememoryproject.org
0 Comments