Dugway Sheep Incident - Incident

Incident

In the days preceding the Dugway sheep incident the United States Army at Dugway Proving Ground conducted at least three separate operations involving nerve agents. All three operations occurred on March 13, 1968. One involved the test firing of a chemical artillery shell, another the burning of 160 U.S. gallons (600 L) of nerve agent in an open air pit and in the third a jet aircraft sprayed nerve agent in a target area about 27 mi (43 km) west of Skull Valley. It is the third event that is usually connected to the Skull Valley sheep kill.

The incident log at Dugway Proving Ground indicated that the sheep incident began with a phone call on March 17, 1968 at 12:30 a.m. The director of the University of Utah's ecological and epidemiological contract with Dugway, a Dr. Bode, phoned Keith Smart, the chief of the ecology and epidemiology branch at Dugway to report that 3,000 sheep were dead in the Skull Valley area. The initial report of the incident came to Bode from the manager of a Skull Valley livestock company. The sheep were grazing in an area about 27 mi (43 km) from the proving ground; total sheep deaths of 6,000-6,400 were reported over the next several days as a result of the incident. The Dugway Safety Office's attempt to count the dead sheep compiled a total of 3,843.