Sheep can fly
<p>WIldlife biologists perform health tests on a bighorn ram at Big Arm State Park. The sheep are not tranquilized but are blindfolded to help keep them calm.</p>
<p>A helicopter lowers five bighorn sheep to Big Arm State Park last week after the sheep were captured on Wild Horse Island.</p>
KALISPELL - An airborne bighorn sheep transplant operation was conducted at Big Arm State Park last week, with a goal of moving 60 sheep from Wild Horse Island.
A contracted helicopter crew netted the sheep from the air, followed by "muggers" on the ground getting the sheep ready for a short flight to Big Arm in slings under the helicopter.
The sheep were processed at Big Arm, with biologists taking nasal swabs, throat cultures and blood and fecal samples. The sheep were slated to be transported by trailer to the southern Cabinet Mountains and the Kootenai Falls Wildlife Management Area near Libby to augment herds there.
The transplant was designed to reduce the sheep population on Wild Horse Island, where a recent aerial survey determined there were at least 155 sheep, including 57 ewes, 52 adult rams, 21 subadult rams, seven half-curl rams, 15 lambs and three sheep that weren't classified.
Those counts do not reflect the entire population, which is well above the island's carrying capacity.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is trying to manage for a target population of about 100 sheep.
State parks staffers have been working for several years to conserve the island's shortgrass prairie habitat that sheep and other wildlife depend on. This is the third sheep transplant operation conducted on the island over the last few years.
The Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes and the Wild Sheep Foundation also are participating in the sheep transplant.
- Hagadone News Network