Exotic sheep killed on Mt. Aeneas

By JIM MANN

The Daily Inter Lake

An exotic, long-haired sheep with full-curl horns was going native on Mount Aeneas until it was spotted and destroyed by a Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks warden.

"To my understanding, it posed a significant disease risk to the wild [bighorn] population up there," said Chuck Bartos, the department's Bigfork area warden. "So I got the word to put it down and that's what I did."

Bighorn sheep populations are notoriously prone to disease, and it's believed that domestic sheep are often the cause. But most disease cases involve bighorns wandering into areas where there are domestic herds.

In this case, it was the other way around.

Bartos said a hiker recently took pictures of the woolly oddity and turned them over to Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials, who started keeping an eye out for it.

"Our fisheries guys were flying into that area to take samples from various lakes," Bartos said, referring to flights that were under way Oct. 6. "They did see it on one of those trips, so they flew me back up there."

Bartos said he had no idea exactly what kind of sheep it was.

"It looked like something you would find in Tibet or something," Bartos said. "It had real shaggy long hair, a large body shape, with curled horns on it."

Bartos was startled not only by its appearance but by its location.

"It was right up on top of Mount Aeneas, right in the Jewel Basin," he said, referring to Jewel's highest peak at 7,530 feet. "How it got there or why it was there, who knows."

Judging from the

photographs, some Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials have speculated that it was a Barbados sheep, a domestic breed that was originally imported from the Caribbean, said public affairs officer John Fraley.

Bartos said the sheep was moving through rocks, right on the edge of a cliff when he first spotted it. He shot the sheep from the helicopter. The animal dived under some trees and died.

Because of its remote and rugged location, the helicopter could not land and the carcass was left behind.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com