Zion National Park asks visitors to watch for coughing sheep

Zion National Park is asking visitors to report any coughing sheep they might encounter as officials try to get a handle on a bighorn pneumonia outbreak in the park 160 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

The National Park Service announced Tuesday that a female bighorn tested positive for Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, a bacterium commonly associated with pneumonia in bighorn sheep.

It is Zion’s first confirmed case of the potentially devastating illness, which has already impacted desert bighorn herds in California, Arizona and Southern Nevada, including those in the River Mountains between Henderson and Boulder City.

Biologists at Zion euthanized that ewe after it was seen coughing and showing other signs of illness on July 20. Since then, more sick bighorns have been found in the park and more samples have been collected and sent for testing. Park spokeswoman Aly Baltrus said one other sheep has been euthanized so far.

The Park Service and the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources are now trying to determine the extent of the outbreak and its potential risk to the approximately 800 bighorn sheep known to live in and around the park.

“There are many variations of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae and not all are equally lethal to bighorn sheep,” Jace Taylor, a biologist from the Utah wildlife agency, said in a written statement. “At this time, no bighorn sheep in the Zion herd are known to have died from pneumonia.”

Bighorn sheep have no natural resistance to pneumonia and tend to die when they get sick. Some of the animals that survive become carriers of the bacteria, infecting and often killing newborn lambs in a cycle that can diminish a herd for up to a decade, if not eliminate it altogether.

There’s no way to treat sick animals or vaccinate healthy ones against the illness, which might have originated in domestic livestock. It does not pose a risk to humans.

Park officials are hoping reports from visitors will help biologists track the spread of the outbreak.

Anyone who spots a sick sheep is asked to call 435-772-0217 or send an email to Zion_Park_Information@nps.gov.

Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Follow @RefriedBrean on Twitter.