COEUR D'ALENE, ID - The University of Idaho has begun an investigation into allegations that its veterinary center kept quiet about research into disease transmission among sheep. The revelation is important because of the debate about domestic sheep grazing on public land in the Northwest. Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

The central question here is whether domestic sheep can pass illnesses along to bighorn sheep.

Researcher Marie Bulgin, who directs the university’s veterinary center in Caldwell, Idaho, has maintained they can’t. But some of her colleagues apparently found they can.

In the late 1990s, those researchers looked into why two bighorn sheep that grazed near domestic sheep in Nevada and Oregon a few years earlier had died. They found that the DNA of the bacteria that killed the bighorn sheep were also found in the domestic sheep.

Word about the study has apparently made the rounds among scientists over the years, but it was never formally published. That has led to allegations that Bulgin used her influence to put the kibosh on the study. She is the past president of the Idaho Wool Growers Association. Bulgin told the Associated Press that she only recently learned of the study.

The University says it plans a thorough investigation.

Copyright 2009 Spokane Public Radio

Listen