Bighorn sheep from Montana get new homes in Utah

60 bighorn sheep released on Jan. 5

Cheers from sportsmen, wildlife watchers and wildlife biologists greeted 60 Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep on Jan. 5.

Bighorn sheep are routinely transplanted to re-establish herds throughout the state.

Photo by Phil Douglass

The cheers came as the crowd watched the sheep leap from trailers that brought them from Montana to their new home in northeastern Utah.

Biologists with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) released the sheep in the Avintaquin unit, an area southwest of Duchesne.

The 10 bighorn rams and 50 ewes and lambs were captured earlier near Augusta, Montana. The biologists then transported them roughly 800 miles to their new home.

"Those [bighorns] are nice, big and healthy," said Charlie Greenwood, regional wildlife manager, as he watched the last group race from the trailer. It was a perfect ending or maybe a great new beginning following years of planning, negotiations and hard work.

"This reintroduction of bighorns has taken several years to accomplish," Greenwood said. "Land purchases, habitat improvements, conservation easements, management plans and public meetings all had to be accomplished [for us to release sheep here today]."

Greenwood said the DWR, the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep, The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. - Forest Service and the Ute Indian Tribe are among the groups that made the release possible.

Bringing bighorns back

Bighorn sheep, once the most abundant big game animal in Utah, were nearly wiped out by settlers and others who moved into the state. Diseases introduced by domestic livestock; unrestricted hunting; habitat degradation; the conversion of bighorn habitat to other uses and competition for resources all took their toll on these majestic animals.

"This was a new transplant location," Greenwood said of the area where the sheep were released on Jan. 5.

"We started releasing sheep in this region in 1982. We've been working on it for 27 years."

Since bighorn sheep were first released into the Flaming Gorge/Green River area, several additional releases have been conducted to supplement the herd or start new herds. Now the northeastern corner of the state has several small, established herds.

"We felt it was time to start working in a new area," Greenwood said. "We'd feel real good if we could get a well-established herd of roughly 200 head in here. There are also some other locations in the region where we'd like to reintroduce bighorn sheep. This effort will keep us busy for another 20 years."