Deadly pneumonia linked to domestic sheep.

The article discusses a study that examined whether domestic sheep can infect bighorn sheep with bacteria that cause fatal pneumonia. The researchers tagged the bacteria Mannheimia haemolytica isolated from domestic sheep to show that it can be transmitted to bighorn sheep when they were in contact with each other. It was found that the bighorns who showed no signs of illness while they were kept 10 meters away from the domestics all died from pneumonia traced back to bacteria originating in the domestic sheep.