I figured we might catch up on a couple things.
Last weekend was the 15th running of the Cascade Crest 100-Mile Endurance Run. Over the past seven or eight years, I’ve written several columns about the runners and their cnnections with the outdoors and fresh air and the earth itself and my admiration for anyone who stretches personal boundaries in an effort to understand what they might actually be able to accomplish. Among a couple hundred race and aid station volunteers, there were more than forty of us licensed ham radio folks helping track runners and handling emergencies. We spend the weekend in the hills because it is always fun to play radio communications, and always an honor to support men and women determined to find their limits.
Over the years, local hams working the Whisky Dick Triathlon, runs up Manastash Ridge and the Cascade Crest 100-miler have cheered Jeff Hashimoto as he passed their checkpoints. You know that Jeff is an environmental science teacher at Ellensburg High School, and you have no doubt watched the success of his cross-country teams over the years. Jeff is also widely known for his coaching of other coaches in the region as they build successful running teams at their own schools. When Jeff’s name comes up, there is invariably some reference to his commitment to demonstrate to his students the form – and fortitude – needed to achieve something special. This was Jeff’s year.
Last weekend, we were able to follow along on the radio net as his bib number 61 was, every five to eight miles, called in as one of the first three runners passing aid stations. As the race wore on, he somehow managed to maintain his pace and even pick it up a bit. By the end of the 100-mile race, Jeff was firmly in second place, finishing in just under 18 hours, 45 minutes, behind Missoula’s Seth Swanson, who set a new course record. Congratulations, Jeff.
You probably saw the story in Monday’s rag about the California bighorn lambs dying in the canyon. The story made it sound like this was a sad surprise for the folks tracking the young sheep. In point of fact, this is no surprise at all. It is exactly as expected.
I’ve been watching bighorn sheep for the better part of five decades. When I was president of the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society, based in Denver, we watched over a healthy and viable herd of about 125 bighorns in Waterton Canyon, in the foothills southwest of Denver. It was a one-of-a-kind low-elevation herd, representing a highly unique gene pool. The sheep started dying of lungworm and pneumonia, under significant stress from construction activity in a relatively confined habitat. By the time it settled down, there were 15 sheep. Numbers stayed near that for a decade, and then began growing a bit. Twenty years later, there were 25 sheep in that canyon.
In 1995-96, pneumonia almost wiped out wild bighorn herds in the Blue Mountains and others in the Hell’s Canyon area of Idaho and Oregon along the Snake River. In 2010 we saw the outbreak in our Umtanum herd. We lost a significant portion of that herdnearby herds. This is a big deal because more than half of the 1,500 bighorns in the state are along the Yakima River.
Those sheep were infected with Mycoplasma and Pasteurella bacteria. Domestic sheep are unaffected by these bacteria, and the pneumonia is not transmitted to humans or domestic stock. It is, however, easily transmitted from domestic to wild sheep, where it spreads very rapidly.
At least three of the states around us continue dealing with situations like the challenge in our Yakima Canyon. States have developed strict rules about the intermingling of domestic and wild sheep. The risk of disease is so great that some states have followed Colorado’s lead in giving carte blanche to the killing of any bighorn (ram, ewe or lamb) found near domestic sheep. As it turns out, almost any nose contact (a common greeting) between domestic and wild sheep will infect the wild sheep with enough bacteria to spread like wildfire through a bighorn herd.
When I last wrote about all this during that 2010 die-off, I pointed out one of the things researchers and observers have noted about the long term impact of pneumonia outbreaks: bighorn ewes that survive pneumonia generally will not and cannot produce surviving offspring for up to ten years (most lambs will die in the first six months of life). No surprise then about what is happening – and will happen – with bighorn lambs in Paradise. Keep a good thought.
And finally, a brief note about the run Homey Bill Boyum and I made to Clatskanie, Oregon, a bit over a week ago. We again teamed up with our newly retired buddy Steve Souvenir to tempt Chinook salmon and chrome-bright steelhead. Over a couple days we tested Steve’s new favorite setups. We fished and laughed. We caught some and missed some. We celebrated our skillful fishing and groaned at our ineptitude in getting a couple into the net. It was a great time.
You gotta love summer.
