An ‘orchestrated dance': Nevada moves bighorn sheep to help restore northern herd

As the roar of a helicopter intensified, an unusual sight came into view: Suspended beneath the aircraft was a bighorn sheep. As soon as it reached the ground, a team of veterinarians and wildlife biologists moved in with practiced precision.

Monday was the second day of an effort led by the Nevada Department of Wildlife to relocate 39 sheep in Valley of Fire State Park to the Tobin Range in Northern Nevada. Over the two days, crews captured the animals, assessed their health and prepared them for transport about 500 miles away.

"They're going to think they've died and gone to heaven when they get up and see the grass up in the Tobins," said Nate LaHue, a veterinarian for the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Sheep in the Muddy Mountain Range have encountered challenges brought on by drought in the region. An official previously told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that there were 1,000 sheep in the region in 2021, and the population fell to 880 two years later.

The helicopter traced loops over the mountain range for hours, searching for bighorn sheep to capture. Officials said it cost around $2,000 for each bighorn sheep that was captured, funded through the auction of hunting permits.

The objective of the capture was two-fold: to protect the herd on the Muddy Mountains and to preserve the habitat.

LaHue said the herd in the Muddy Mountains was the "gem herd" for deserts in the state, meaning that it is the only herd without an outbreak of pneumonia, a disease that is prevalent in bighorn populations.

Froylan Hernandez, the wildlife department's game supervisor for Southern Nevada, said the herd's population was approaching the department's target of 450 sheep.

Once that benchmark is reached, competition over scarce resources increases and sheep are more likely to roam into areas where they could encounter disease carried by domestic sheep or other infected bighorns, he said.

"That could decimate this population," LaHue said. "The reason we're doing this is to try to keep this herd healthy."

An outbreak of pneumonia around half a decade ago wiped out 70 percent of the herd in the Tobin Range, LaHue added. Last year, the wildlife department held a similar capture and relocated some of those sheep to that range, where the department believes the existing herd is no longer contagious.

LaHue said those sheep had integrated well into the existing herd. He described this year's capture as an "augmentation" of that previous effort.

"We're recovering this population from a disease event that has since cleared out of that range," LaHue said. "This is just to kind of help speed that recovery along."

Capturing the sheep is a carefully choreographed process.

Once crews locate a sheep, it is sedated, restrained with a net and flown beneath the helicopter to a temporary base camp.

There, veterinarians and wildlife biologists evaluate its condition. They check for overheating by taking the animal's temperature, examine it for cuts, broken bones and ticks, and collect blood samples and nasal swabs to test for pneumonia. The sheep are then loaded into a transport trailer to begin the journey north.

Doug Nielsen, a spokesperson for the Wildlife Department, described the capture as an "orchestrated dance."

"It's pretty dialed in," Nielsen said. "Everybody has a role to play. Everybody knows what they're doing."

This process can be perilous for the sheep. LaHue acknowledged that there was a potential for injury, but he said that was a necessary risk to capture the sheep in the rugged environment they live in.

LaHue said attempts to minimize the stress the sheep endure by limiting chase times and processing the sheep as quickly as possible.

"We are trying our best," LaHue said. "These animals are valued. We're spending a lot of money to go catch these animals, to bring them into camp and to move them up to Northern Nevada. So we spend a lot of time, effort and money on animal welfare."

Around 50 people are involved in the capture, including 30 volunteers. For Brett Adams, volunteering for this capture has become a yearly tradition. Adams said he found the opportunity through his membership in the Fraternity of the Desert Bighorn, a conservation group.

Adams is not a biologist. He described himself as an "average" person who "just loves conservation and (is) trying to help out."

"Everyone likes to say, ‘Conservation is important.' It's extremely important," Adams said. "If you can't give money, give time. Helping them in any way, shape, or form is more crucial than people just want to talk about, actually participating and showing up is where it's really at."

Hernandez echoed this sentiment and hoped to draw attention to the issues bighorn sheep face.

"The reasons why there's been declines, bighorn declines - not just in Nevada, but westwide - is because of humans," Hernandez said. "It's our responsibility to do those things to better their situation."

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(Review-Journal staff writer Alan Halaly contributed to this report.)

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