Sheep moved from Paradise to Wyoming

The Daily Inter Lake

and The Associated Press

After a capture operation on Monday and Tuesday near Paradise, 42 Montana bighorn sheep have new homes in Wyoming.

The total includes 31 ewes, six lambs and five yearling rams.

The sheep were part of the 600-sheep Perma-Paradise herd in Northwest Montana.

Wyoming Game and Fish biologists released the sheep into the Laramie Peak Wildlife Habitat Management Area northwest of Cheyenne.

"This is the first Montana blood that has come into Laramie Peak," said Bob Lanka, Wyoming wildlife management coordinator.

A private firm that specializes in the aerial net-gun technique captured the sheep.

According to Fish, Wildlife and Parks biologist Bruce Sterling, the net encircles the sheep, and then a worker, called a mugger, jumps down from the helicopter and hog-ties the animal's legs.

The sheep were suspended from the helicopter and flown to a receiving site.

There, Fish, Wildlife and Parks veterinarian Mark Atkinson and his lab crew tested the animals for condition and disease and provided a broad-spectrum antibiotic and selenium shots to help prevent capture myopathy.

Finally, the sheep were loaded into a horse trailer for transport. No tranquilizer drugs were used.

"This project has been a win-win for everyone," state wildlife manager Jim Williams said. "It allows us to get important information on this herd and helps us manage the herd numbers. At the same time we can contribute to wildlife recovery in an adjacent state."

Members of Flathead Wildlife Inc., a conservation group based in Kalispell, participated in the effort.

They assisted state biologists Sterling, Erik Wenum, Tom Litchfield, Jerry Brown, Williams, and Fish, Wildlife and Parks Commissioner Vic Workman of Whitefish, along with Wyoming Fish and Game personnel.

Laramie Peak already has about 200 bighorn sheep, but most came from the Whiskey Mountain herd near Dubois.

Lanka said the new bighorns would be better suited to the Laramie Peak ecosystem. The Plains area has habitat similar to Laramie Peak - high and arid, but not the extreme high-altitude terrain that the Whiskey Mountain herd lives in.

"These sheep from Montana are basically used to moving up and down one mountain," Lanka said, unlike the Whiskey Mountain herd that migrates from high alpine meadows to lower elevations.