40 bighorn from Canada released in U.S.
District wildlife manager Matt Yamashita, left of trailer, and others watched a bighorn sheep bolt after being moved to the Hayman fire burn area. AP Photo file
The Associated Press
CHADRON, Neb. — Forty bighorn sheep captured in Canada have been released on private land in the northwest corner of Nebraska, bolstering the state's small but recovering population.
The five rams and 35 ewes were released Thursday near the Panhandle town of Harrison in Sioux County, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission said in a news release Friday.
The sheep were captured by drop nets on Tuesday in the Canadian Rockies west of Edmonton, near Hinton. The commission said 17 commission staff members and two U.S. Department of Agriculture veterinarians went to Canada to help capture the sheep and bring them to their new home in Nebraska.
Bighorn sheep are native to Nebraska but were killed off in the early 1900s by loss of habitat, disease and unregulated hunting. Before Thursday, Nebraska's bighorn population had been estimated at 315 sheep.
The release will bolster the state's herd by filling habitat in the Sowbelly Canyon area, which has not been home to bighorn sheep for more than 100 years, as well as diversifying the genetics of the existing Pine Ridge population.
The restoration began with the 1981 release of a dozen sheep from South Dakota into a 500-acre enclosure at Fort Robinson State Park near Crawford. Since 2001, 122 sheep from Colorado and Montana have been released in the Pine Ridge east of Crawford and in the Wildcat Hills near Gering.
The relocation was paid for by the sale and auction of 17 bighorn sheep hunting permits issued since 1998, the commission said.
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