Bighorn sheep get new Texas home

December 27, 2010|Associated Press

BIG BEND RANCH STATE PARK, Texas — Dozens of majestic bighorn sheep have moved into a Texas state park as part of wildlife restoration efforts aimed at returning the sheep to their historic range.

The 12 curly horned rams and 34 ewes, plucked by helicopter from one rugged area of West Texas, now call the Bofecillos Mountains in Big Bend Ranch State Park home. The capture and release days before Christmas was the latest step in a decades-long restoration project to bring the mountain sheep back to their range after unfettered hunting, fencing, and disease from other animals decimated their numbers.

All but gone from Texas by the 1960s from more than 1,500 in the late 1800s, efforts to restore them in the Trans-Pecos region have proved successful. This fall, Texas biologists tallied 1,115 sheep in Texas, up from 822 in 2006 and 352 in 2002.

The 29 sheep captured on the first of the two-day endeavor sprang away from the trailers and crates that they had traveled inside for about 80 miles and quickly scampered up one mountain’s steep terrain. About 80 volunteers, conservation supporters, and state and federal wildlife officials cheered them on and applauded.

The release was their first reintroduction into a Texas state park.

The 46 animals needed to be moved from Elephant Mountain Wildlife Management Area, about 25 miles south of Alpine, because of a surplus of sheep for the habitat. Most of the ewes are pregnant and will lamb in several months, officials said.