Prescribed burns planned for the Okanagan to help Big Horn Sheep

An Okanagan conservation group is trying to fight disease with fire.

The Wild Sheep Society of BC says it has planned for at least two prescribed burns in the coming months in an attempt to give the disease-riddled sheep in the valley a fighting chance.

It’s been an up-and-down battle for the Okanagan’s bighorn sheep population.

On the east side of the Okanagan Valley, they’re doing great  — anywhere between 500 to 600 of them, disease free. But on the Westside of the valley, the picture is not so rosy.

“The Westside of the Okanagan Valley, where we have bighorn sheep, extends from the Penticton Indian Band reserve lands, down to Oliver and then west into the Ashnola/Similkameen. All of those currently have a disease, a parasitic mite that causes mange,” senior government biologist Andrew Walker said.

Walker says the disease has wiped out up to more than half the population. But help is on the way.

The Wild Sheep Society of BC says the burns will take place in the spring — one in the Penticton area, another in the Shorts Creek on the Westside.