The University of Idaho is looking into whether a professor violated terms of her paid leave while it investigates her claims of how bighorn sheep get deadly diseases.
The school is trying to determine what role Marie Bulgin, head of the UI's Caine Veterinary Teaching and Research Center, played at a Sept. 29 meeting of the Idaho Bighorn/Domestic Sheep Collaborative. State officials and wildlife groups said Bulgin introduced herself as a representative of the facility in Caldwell.
"Until we know more about those circumstances, we simply cannot speculate," Tania Thompson, a UI spokeswoman, said in an e-mail Thursday. "In the event that her attendance was in violation of her leave status with the university, it will be addressed as a personnel matter."
Since June, Bulgin has been on leave as the university investigates her testimony in federal court and the Idaho Legislature, where she insisted there was no proof bighorns can catch diseases from domestic sheep on the range. Evidence to the contrary has been collected by the Caine center's own researchers, including Bulgin's daughter, since at least 1994.
Bulgin was traveling and didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.
Conservation groups at the state-sponsored meeting, which was aimed at remedying conflicts between ranchers and bighorn sheep, said she introduced herself as a Caine representative.
"I was surprised by that," said Ken Cole, with Western Watersheds Project, a critic of Bulgin's work. "I thought she was on administrative leave."
Idaho sheep ranchers at the Boise meeting didn't immediately return calls seeking comment about Bulgin's role. Neither did Stan Boyd, director of the Idaho Wool Growers Association.
Idaho bighorn numbers have dwindled by half since 1990 to about 3,500 animals after several mass die-offs, making disease transmission the subject of fierce debate.
Bulgin, a former Wool Grower's Association president, been a lightning rod among wildlife scientists and conservation groups for her ardent ranching-industry support — and for denying evidence of disease transmission on the range.
Other scientists have accepted that bighorns can contract deadly lung diseases when they encounter domestic sheep in the wild, but ranchers fear efforts to prevent contact could put them out of business. The Payette National Forest north of Boise is considering closing domestic sheep grazing allotments in Hell's Canyon to protect bighorns.
In 1994, Caine center scientists including Jeanne Bulgin, Marie Bulgin's daughter, used DNA tests to determine parasites behind deadly pneumonia in two bighorns were identical to bacteria found in domestic sheep that had mixed with the wild animals.
Transmission "likely occurred between the species on the range," the Caine center then concluded.
Bulgin contends she didn't know of or suppress the Caine center studies, which were never published in wildlife journals.
The university in June began investigating after the media raised concerns about the integrity of research at an institution whose leader was closely affiliated with industry. On June 17, it released a statement that Bulgin would take administrative leave and not be involved in sheep-related projects "nor publish or otherwise disseminate research materials regarding sheep or sheep-related diseases."
Debate over Bulgin's meeting appearance last week marks another turbulent chapter in the Bighorn/Domestic Sheep Collaborative, called together by Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter. Earlier this year, the Nez Perce tribe and some wildlife groups quit the effort, contending state leaders weren't serious partners.
They cited the 2009 Legislature's move to protect ranching by requiring Fish and Game officials to accept the risk of disease transmission in areas where ranchers had developed plans to separate the species.
