Detection of Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae in Pneumonic Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus) Kids

We documented bronchopneumonia in seven mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) kid mortalities between 2011 and 2015 following a pneumonia epizootic in bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and sympatric mountain goats in the adjacent East Humboldt Range and Ruby Mountains in Elko County, Nevada, US. Gross and histologic lesions resembled those described in bighorn lambs following all-age epizootics, and Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae was detected with real-time PCR in the lower and upper respiratory tracts of all kids. Mannheimia haemolytica, with one isolate being leukotoxigenic, was cultured from the upper respiratory tract of five kids, and in one kid, a leukotoxigenic strain of Mannheimia glucosida was isolated from both upper and lower respiratory tracts. During this same period, 75 mountain goats within the two populations were marked and sampled for respiratory pathogens, and M. ovipneumoniae, leukotoxigenic Bibersteinia trehalosi, and Mannheimia haemolytica were identified. The M. ovipneumoniae recovered from the kid mortalities shared the same DNA sequence-based strain type detected in the adult goats and sympatric bighorn sheep during and after the 2009-10 pneumonia outbreak. Clinical signs in affected kids, as well as decreased annual kid recruitment, also resembled reports in big-horn lambs from some herds following all-age pneumonia-associated die-offs. Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae, Pasteurellaceae spp., and other respiratory bacterial pathogens should be considered as a cause of pneumonia with potential population-limiting effects in mountain goats.