Bighorns on the move

Yuma Proving Ground - Friday was moving day for a dozen desert bighorn sheep captured near the Martinez Lake area as part of a state wildlife agency relocation program.

"The purpose of the program is to reintroduce these sheep into areas of the state where they used to be and to restock already-existing herds," said Arizona Game and Fish Department spokesman Doug Burt.

The 10 females and two rams caught were captured as part of the Game and Fish department's translocation-release program, which began in 1957.

According to Burt, Friday's capture marked the program's 50th anniversary and the agency's 100th roundup.

The captured sheep are to be taken north thisSaturday morning to their new home in the Bighorn Mountains, just beyond Interstate 10 between Quartzsite and Tonopah.

"We will basically open the trailer and let the sheep out," Burt said. "Typically they get out and run away."

The Game and Fish Department is trying to re-establish a population there that disappeared in the mid-1990s from diseases introduced by domestic sheep then grazing in the area, according to Burt.

The dozen or so game and fish employees conducting the roundup were helped by two YPG employees and volunteers from the Arizona Desert Bighorn Society and the Liberty Wildlife Rehabilitation Foundation.

Yuma Proving Ground wildlife biologist Randy English said Friday's roundup was the third time bighorn sheep had been collected from YPG property in the past six years.

In what was a modern-day version of a roundup, the sheep were caught using two helicopters, a couple of net guns, and taken back to a makeshift veterinary facility set up at a staging site.

The helicopters would fly over the area and when they spotted a sheep suitable for capture, it was shot with a net gun and a person called a "mugger" would jump out and wrestle it to the ground.

If the sheep was calm and cooperative the "mugger" would put it inside the helicopter for transport back to the veterinary facility. If the sheep was agitated, it would be flown back on a harness hanging underneath the helicopter.

Once back at the makeshift veterinary facility, the sheep were carried from the helicopter using a stretcher with leg holes and taken to an area where the net was removed and they were given an examination to determine how healthy they were.

Retired veterinarian Clancy Gansberg, who has been involved in the program since 1986, said despite the lack of food in the area, the sheep seemed to have been doing well.

"They seem to be coming in, in good shape," Gansberg said in between two examinations. "They all have been relatively healthy."

As part of the examination, all the sheep were given antibiotics, tagged and had blood drawn. The females were given radio collars and checked to see if they were carrying any young.

"We want to make sure they aren't carrying any diseases they could spread to other sheep before putting them back into a herd," Burt said.

Burt explained that while a sheep is being examined it is given oxygen to help keep it calm and cold water is poured over it to help keep its body temperature cool.

Alison Kocek, a Liberty Wildlife member, was one of the people assigned to help keep the sheep cool during the examination. She said she volunteered to help because she had never worked with animals as large as bighorn sheep before.

"Since we could be working with more bighorn sheep sometime, this type of experience is important," Kocek said. "Plus it's fun. I couldn't pass up this opportunity."

Burt said the state's bighorn sheep population has now increased from barely 1,000 animals in 1950 to more than 6,000 today, mostly due to the translocation effort.

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James Gilbert can be reached at

jgilbert@yumasun.com or 539-6854.